Ron鈥檚 education is an eclectic blend of social work, counseling, and theological studies. Ron holds a Doctorate of Ministry in Complex Urban Settings from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Boston. His dissertation title, Welcoming Kids to the Table of Community: New Horizons Ministries as a Model of Service to Homeless Runaway Adolescents, addresses the psychosocial and spiritual issues surrounding homeless adolescents and describes a relationally based and theologically-supported delivery strategy to serve these marginalized young people.

Ron is a senior fellow with the Center for Transforming Mission, providing training and support for grassroots urban leaders serving youth and families in hard places around the world. Closer to home, Ron is on a regular preaching schedule at several local churches. He lives in the Rainier Valley, a multicultural neighborhood in the south end of Seattle with his wife, Linda, with whom he has served for nearly 30 years. Their two adult sons, Ben and Clayton, live close by.

Ron teaches courses focused on Biblical ethics, social justice and community development, such as 鈥淏eing the Word on the Street,鈥� 鈥淓ngaging Global Partnerships,鈥� and 鈥淐are of the Soul and the Call to Sacred Activism.鈥�

What are you currently reading?

Over the past six months with the political climate in the US conflates nationalism, and whiteness with Christianity, I have been drawn in two directions. First to understand this shift, both theologically and psycho-socially.听 I have read The Flag and The Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy by Philip S Gorski and Samuel Perry American Idolatry: How Christian Nationalism Betrays the Gospel and Threatens The Church聽by Andrew Whitehead and The Psychology of Christian 聽Nationalism: Why People Are Drawn In and How to Talk Across the Great Divide by Pamela Cooper-White. The second direction is a strategy and corrective action taken to counteract the theological misappropriation and social narcissism that has led to the myth of exceptionalism and its misguided mandate regarding the election, doctrines of discovery, and manifest destiny.听 For this I have been reading Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party by Joshua Bloom and Waldo E. Martin, Jr. as well as other community organizing books. The best of which is Ben McBride’s Troubling the Water: The Urgent Call of Radical Belonging聽

What have you been listening to lately?

Sturgill Simpson, Yola Carter, Amythyst Kiah, Tyler Childers, Brandi Carlisle, and Marcus King are always on my playlist. I also just finished the Podcast The Walk Home, a public radio journalism project that tells the story of murdered Tacoma resident Emmanuel Ellis. For live music, you鈥檒l find me at the Tractor listening to alt-country and Americana music, or following my son’s band, Miss Prince. I love watching Clayton鈥檚 band play loud all over the city.

What research do you find yourself drawn to at the moment?

I鈥檝e been reflecting quite a bit on whiteness and identity. Dr Hoard and I are at the beginning stages of a project regarding the embodiment of Antiracist practice in contrast to ideological platitudes.

Any exciting summer plans?

I am always trying to be a more proficient motorcycle rider! Gardening with Linda. This July we hope to be on the Oregon Coast.

If you could have dinner with any person, dead or alive, who would they be?

No question: Johnny Cash.

If you weren鈥檛 in your current profession, you鈥檇 be鈥�?

I would love to own a tavern/BBQ joint that played blues and Americana music. I would also love to be a prison chaplain.

Who is your literary or living hero?

Arnold Spirit in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Also, my sons: My oldest is an elementary school teacher. His way of teaching and connecting with kids, being attentive to social/emotional learning, and actively working to address the opportunity gap is inspiring. My youngest is an artist and musician. His art is filled with complexity, and his music is loud and truth-filled.

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Dr. Friesen is passionate about reimagining how people imagine and practice following in the way of Jesus the Christ, personally and collectively. His scholarly work centers on how people convene together in local communities which fosters greater imagination, practices, postures, and narratives for experiencing G-d鈥檚 Shalom; the centering of G-d鈥檚 Shalom within real places with real neighbors subverts the values, practices, and narratives of classism, sexism, racism, naturism, and all systems that seek to oppress. Dwight describes his professional calling as: 鈥渟earching for, learning with, and training leaders for the 鈥榗hurch鈥� emerging after Western whiteness Christianity.鈥�

Known for beginning his classes by sounding a singing bowl and lighting a peace candle, Dwight brings many years of contextual pastoral leadership experience to 天美视频. Recently, he served as the part-time Pastor of Bellevue’s St Luke’s Lutheran Church. He was the community-curate of an Eastside emerging simple church for more than 11 years; he was ordained by the Christian & Missionary Alliance until surrendering those credentials in solidarity with women seeking ordination. He is a liturgical Anabaptist with progressive and emergent sensibilities, actively seeking to root his faith practice within place while linking globally with others who are seeking to live into their contexts. Dwight aims to free the apophatic and cataphatic theologies to dance together.

Dr. Friesen earned his Doctor of Ministry degree at George Fox University, where his dissertation research focused on the development of a relational hermeneutic toward connective leadership and ecclesial structures. He earned his master鈥檚 degree from Trinity International University in Deerfield, Illinois where his thesis explored biblical images and metaphors of community, and his undergraduate degree from Ambrose University College in Calgary, Alberta.

In addition to his leadership development work at our seminary, Dwight is a consultant for local faith communities and missional organizations seeking an even more faithful presence within their contexts, and has a focus on helping neighborhood churches 鈥� from a wide array of traditions 鈥� flip the script on funding ministry through reimagining asset management. He is a co-founder of the Inhabit Conference, a founding board member of Parish Collective, and engages internationally with the Urban Shalom Society in service of United Nations-Habitat. His personal calling & realms of professional expertise make meaningful contact in the UN鈥檚 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) eleven & sixteen…Cities & Peace. Dwight will be participating in UN-Habitat鈥檚 World Urban Forum 12 (WUF12) later this year in Egypt. He has served on the National Council of Churches鈥� 鈥淔aith & Order Commission,鈥� and has served as an adjunct professor at the undergraduate, masters, and doctoral levels at seminaries and Bible colleges in both Canada and the USA, and regularly speaks at conferences both nationally and internationally.

Dwight and his partner Lynette live in the Lake Hills neighborhood of Bellevue, Washington where they are adjusting to life as empty nesters. His personal blog is: .

What are you currently reading?

Rest is Resistance, by Tricia Hersey
The Amen Effect, by Sharon Brous
Who Do We Choose to Be, by Meg Wheatley
Slow Productivity, Cal Newport

What have you been listening to lately?

An audio journal on faith and culture (audio journal)
Insight Timer (app)
The Witness (podcast)
Queerology (podcast)
Tara Brach (podcast)
Thelonious Monk (Jazz pianist)
Middle Kids (Band)

What research do you find yourself drawn to at the moment?

Two realms currently:

• Learning from church expressions who are finding new life by listening to, joining with, and reimagining their assets for the flourishing of their neighbors and their neighborhoods.
• How to better prepare leaders to convene local communities of faith to foster expansive imaginations for G-d鈥檚 Shalom.

If you could have dinner with any person, dead or alive, who would they be?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer; Rosa Parks; Michael Polanyi; Dirk Willems … Jesus would be great, but I think we already have a dinner on the books.

If you weren鈥檛 in your current profession you鈥檇 be鈥�?

A designer, interior or landscape; maybe a poet.

Who is your literary or living hero?

Currently, Greta Thunburg.

Learn More about Dr. Dwight Friesen:

Through his work with 天美视频, Parish Collective, the Urban Shalom Society, and UN-Habitat, Dwight has had opportunity to visit hundreds of parish expressions around the world and is especially attentive to groups who are seeking to form communities of whole-life disciples of Jesus by operationalizing the love of God as the love of neighbor through faithful presence.

Dwight listens for challenges facing institutional systems, local church economic realities, quests for liberation and equity, pandemic challenges, etc., curious to discover how emerging challenges might be a kind of invitation from the Spirit to discover new ways to love God by loving our neighbors and ourselves. Dwight鈥檚 personal and mystical encounter and ongoing relationship with the Triune G-d as seen in Jesus of Nazareth compels his service of Christ鈥檚 church in all its forms.

Dwight has authored, co-authored, or contributed to numerous books including:

• .

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In spring 2024, the BIPOC, Access (students with neurodiversity, chronic pain, and/or disability), LGBTQIA+, and QT BIPOC student groups collaborated to create an on-campus art show with the theme of 鈥淟iminality.鈥澛� 天美视频 students and alumni who identify as underrepresented within the context of 天美视频 and/or within their profession had the opportunity to share their artistic and creative work together. The concept of the Underrepresented Voices art gallery began in 2023 when student groups co-sponsored the inaugural show.

Organizers described this year鈥檚 theme: 鈥�鈥楲iminality鈥� could be as broad as anything you, as an underrepresented student, would like to express about yourself. Or, it could be as specific as invisibility, minoritized experiences, subjugated knowledge, or beauty in the margins, the sacred mystery in your culture or identity, etc.鈥� In addition to representing the BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, QT BIPOC, and Access student groups, the students who participated were also representative of the three degree programs: Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology (MACP), Master of Arts in Theology & Culture (MATC), and Master of Divinity (MDiv).听

As artist Roy Mong commented, the diversity expressed within the 鈥淟iminality鈥� show extended to the wide variety of media and art forms represented as well.听 Artists displayed works with acrylic paint, oil paint, oil pastels, gold leaf, watercolors, cardboard, wood, and various fabrics. Some of the pieces in the show had been created as final projects for the Winter 2024 course titled 鈥淣arrative, Identity & Asian American Experiences,鈥� taught by Dr. Jermaine Ma.

The 鈥淟iminality鈥� show launched during spring residency, and the artists had the opportunity on Friday afternoon to share their experiences and insights with their classmates, both related to making the pieces as well as sharing them publicly. Students discussed themes such as courage and vulnerability. Artists shared their anxieties about visible imperfections, and wrestling with the felt need to justify or explain their work. They also described how they challenged themselves and learned through the creative process from exploring cultural identities to understanding and practicing new techniques. For example, Sunghee Kim used watercolor painting to display Jo-kak-bo, a traditional Korean patchwork technique, and Ryan Ho shaped bass and walnut wood into Kumiko patterns, a Japanese art style from the 7th century. Roy Mong described how the use of different colors helped him to integrate and appreciate different aspects of himself and his experiences.

Inspiration was another theme. The 2023 gallery had encouraged this year鈥檚 artists: in seeing the work of others they were inspired to share their work as well, to continue inspiration and conversation for future generations of students. The 2024 show also continued the themes of collaboration and engagement: two artists invited interaction and responses through a QR code while other artists invited sensory engagement through touch. Students at the reception expressed their gratitude and wonder to the artists for the depth of expansion and interconnection with the works.

Another theme that emerged was how uniqueness and individuality were expressed within the diversity of the art and media on display in the gallery. 鈥淏y being significantly and uniquely you, you can encourage and uplift others. You are helping further the conversation,鈥� said Roy Mong. As in 2023, belonging emerged as a theme as well. Natalie Ng described feeling 鈥�Not Chinese enough. Not white enough鈥ith liminality, I鈥檝e learned to somehow embrace it and be ok in the uncomfortable spots.鈥� Describing liminality, Mong shared, 鈥淭he edge is where you live.鈥� 鈥淢aking the unseen seen is the whole point of the gallery,鈥� said Ng.

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Introduction & Preview

Here we claim that the ghosts and shadows of institutions such as ours now speak to things that we need to hear. They keep watch and hold vigil. They help us to see that which we can only see in part, if even in frustrating or even alienating ways. To that end, we seek to honor the ghosts and shadows of those who have come before us. In this blog series our purposes are as follows: 1) to create words and frames for taking responsibility for our part(s) of our institutional history, and 2) to invite conversation and response. We hope you鈥檒l join us in this journey.

Our lineage is one of fire and ashes, ghosts and shadows, ghouls and angels, shame, and beauty. Ghosts and shadows can haunt us in ghoulish ways. But they can also point to realities that must be engaged for the transformation made possible through love to have its way.听聽

Ghosts and Shadows: Systemic Inheritance

Ghosts and shadows are the stuff of institution. They are the me/not-me of places like graduate schools, and maybe even graduate schools like our own. Hence, we have made them鈥揼hosts and shadows鈥搕he focus of this blog series, meant to join in the celebration of our first 25 years of institutional living, but also with the look ahead to the next 25 years.

To begin, a bit of context. Martin Buber (1970) acknowledged that institutions will always bear limits, given the I-It framework on which institutions are built. Speaking of I-It, Anderson (2016) highlighted the continued, systemic failure of American institutions to prioritize and value all citizens, instead most enact the 鈥渨hite rage鈥� of a white supremacist system on bodies of color. James Carse (1986) proposed that power (often associated with white supremacist systems) looks to maintain the status quo, whereas strength allows the horizon to move. Wilfred Bion (Rioch, 1970) spoke to how groups of people will, at a less than conscious level, abide by their own survival needs when such needs seem to be threatened in some way. Moreover, institutions (just like the people who operate within them) have limits, and often those limits are maintained by (quests for) power. Power can be used to defend one鈥檚 very (institutional) survival, either real or imagined.

We are at a cultural point of questioning the importance and value of institutions. There is no question that institutions like ours have failed and will continue to fail. And yet, while institutions continue to fail and cause harm, they are also places that hold and support. While the white church in the US, for example, has long been complicit in the oppression, lynching, and enslavement of Black bodied-Americans, the Black church has long been a source of hope, resistance and support (Cone 2011 and Jennings 2010;2020).

And so it goes that here we find ourselves as core faculty at 天美视频 of Theology & Psychology, an institution that was founded by a bunch of dreamers who wished for something new and different from and for graduate education, and specifically theological education. Those dreamers pushed, and maybe most notably they pushed off of what had come before them. Fantasies of what had come prior turned to imaginations for what could be.

In concordance with those fantasies, here at 天美视频, the faculty have been working to actively (re)imagine our curricula and pedagogy for many a year now. A benefit of being a newer institution, not confined by certain bureaucracies or funding sources, is that we can work to become and to stay relevant in the midst of an ever-changing educational and cultural landscape. We can seek the horizon, even in the midst of trying to keep our doors open and to make sure we are abiding by things like our accreditation standards and the codes of ethics that govern our work.

So how does it go? The work is difficult, and the work is perennial. Sometimes there is fun and joint exploration, and sometimes there is distress and consternation. We know of the importance of making the implicit explicit, and we know what happens to messages that hover in the realm of the implicit.

For me (Paul Hoard), here at 天美视频 the implicit has haunted my experience like family secrets at one鈥檚 in-laws. I鈥檝e just joined this community in the fall of 2021 and have found myself confronted with the nameless ghosts of what’s come before me. That I am new, though, doesn鈥檛 insulate me from the power of these specters. In faculty meetings, I often find myself swept up in the apathy, affects, and arguments that are somehow both mine and not mine; struggles that have long predated me. They tie me to a story that has been playing out officially at least at our institution for the past 25 years. I am buffeted by these ghosts, at times driven by an almost manic energy to produce and innovate while almost simultaneously yanked back into a defensive retreat from the intensity and fray. I find such a desire to shine and prove myself alongside a fear that I will disappear into a collective.

Each time I (Doug Shirley) 鈥渆nter the building鈥� (which can include a Zoom room for a meeting or a synchronous class session), I experience a certain haunt. As a 鈥渇irst-born son鈥� of the institution (the first alum to enter the ranks of core faculty), I am often aware of the 鈥渘ot-ness鈥� that is in me to pursue: just like those early dreamers were interested in positioning themselves towards what they were not (e.g. a philosophically modern, theological institution), I am often compelled to position myself as something or someone those dreamers were not (e.g. able to live out their mission together, etc.). The institutional 鈥渘ot me鈥� that seems to be baked into so much of the dreamers鈥� framework, and to linger in so many of our staff meetings and class sessions, finds valence in me, a progeny of this institution.

The problem with a focus on 鈥渘ot-ness鈥� is that it doesn鈥檛 leave one with anywhere to move towards. Freedom from is not freedom for, and in many cases, is not really freedom at all. In philosophy this is seen as the concept of determinant negation. We are far more determined by what we think we are not than by what we are. In psychological theory we get the paradoxical theory of change: the more one attempts to be something they are not, the more things stay the same. If I (Doug Shirley), as the progeny of the generation before me, try to 鈥渘ot鈥� be something that generation was, the likelihood that such efforts will lead to anything meaningful, generative, or sustainable is low, as so many of us become our parents despite all efforts to be anything but them. Though such efforts are often the early entry ways into something new and different, if one settles for the not-ness of something, one never has a something to turn to.

At 天美视频, we are haunted by the legacies of the founders and the faculty who came before. Their gifts and their struggles, their arrogance and their humility, their service and their memories linger in the halls and digital spaces. Legacies call us back to that which was: They are often much more about the person leaving the legacy than they are to the person to whom the legacy is left (or maybe better said, who is left by the legacy). Higher education is rife with legacy. It can be a great honor to carry on the work of those who came before you but it is a great burden to carry their expectations.

Additionally, as with many other parts of our capitalist society, higher education lures and rewards the more self-interested, self-aggrandizing and narcissistic sides of each of us. While many professors begin with sincere conscious desires to help the world and to pursue wisdom and truth, we often quickly lose sight of such as we are seduced by our own legacy (power, survival needs) and the pressure to succeed and perform. Questions like, 鈥淲hat will I leave behind?鈥� or 鈥淗ow will I be remembered?鈥� fill in the spaces between subject and object, progeny and progenitor, previous employee and one currently gathering a paycheck.

What then can/do we do as those left by a legacy (or threatening to leave one ourselves)? Carrying on a work that is haunted by the ghosts and shadows of those who came before is confusing at best and isolating more often. When a person鈥檚 work has been undermined by their own actions, what is the task left to those who come after? Do we hold to what they think they left us? Do we abandon their struggle in favor of our own? Do we define or demarcate ourselves by what we are not? What happens when we hear something in their efforts that they no longer hear?

Ghosts and shadows never go away. And the misnomer that haunts them is that they exist to engage in ill will. What if this weren鈥檛 the case? What if light and dark held and conveyed in ghosts and shadows were merely contrasts? What if one could never escape the dark, because of its relation to the light?

Here we claim that the ghosts and shadows of institutions such as ours now speak to things that we need to hear. They keep watch and hold vigil. They help us to see that which we can only see in part, if even in frustrating or even alienating ways. To that end, we seek to honor the ghosts and shadows of those who have come before us. In this blog series our purposes are as follows: 1) to create words and frames for taking responsibility for our part(s) of our institutional history, and 2) to invite conversation and response. We hope you鈥檒l continue to join us in this journey.

Ghosts and Shadows: Ghouls and Angels

I (Paul Hoard) have found Lacanian theory incredibly helpful as I have tried to navigate my place in the school. It has given me language for thinking about the unthinkable and about the limitations of my own ability to conceptualize that which may be hard to put into words. Lacanian theory argues that reality as we experience it can be divided into three intersecting registers: the real, imaginary, and symbolic. The imaginary and symbolic registers compromise our conscious, subjective experiences of the world. They comprise the rules and relationships between the things that we identify and experience. The real, however, is that which can鈥檛 be put into words: that which isn鈥檛 able to be symbolized and remains impossible. In a game of chess, for example, the symbolic and imaginary work together uniting theme and rules to make a structured game of medieval combat. The real of chess, though, would be everything related to the context and players of the game: what can鈥檛 be contained in the game itself. The real constantly interacts with and irrupts into the game, but can鈥檛 be conceived of in the limited world of pawns and rooks.

Ghosts and shadows, the focus of this ongoing conversation, exist in the real, and therefore will continue to haunt us from that place. The risk we run is limiting ourselves to what we imagine these ghosts and shadows are telling us, instead of trusting beyond our perception or understanding of the impossible real they point to. When we try to force ourselves to live into what we can only imagine, we create a resistance to the real. A resistance to what the ghosts and shadows are inviting us to re-member. In this way ghosts and shadows become misidentified as malicious ghouls, or the undead zombies from the past that refuse to stay buried. They become the stuff of nightmares, judging and condemning our inability to ever measure up. Alternatively when we can hope beyond what we can currently imagine, we leave open the possibility of a 鈥減erhaps鈥� that these spectral guests may host. This, however, involves a release of what we think they mean: what is made thinkable by our imaginary-symbolic. The real is always something beyond what seems possible, and that is why pursuing such is always an act of faith. Listening for this real requires a release of control and a foolish hope in what we cannot see.

天美视频 is a graduate school. It is an institution of higher learning. But our institution was founded on an espousal of difference: a reach beyond that which often existed in the academy, and maybe specifically in theological education. We share hope in subverting systems and empowering students; we seek to transform individuals, communities, and therefore (at least our little corner of) the world. So as we wrestle with texts and argue with scholars and one another, we bring such texts into conversation and dialogue with soul and culture.

However, text is never neutral. in Plato鈥檚 Phaedrus dialogue Socrates recounts a myth around the significance of the written word stating 鈥淸written letters] give your disciples not truth but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.鈥� Text in its very nature has impact.

Inscribing ideas into text carries with it a loss and an insulation from the real. There鈥檚 a calcification that takes place as the words become fixed while context(s) and time changes. Lacan argues that the signifiers and the signified of language never fully align. Therefore all communication is a failure. As such, when we concretize the signifiers through writing, the slippage of the signified鈥搊r the intended message鈥搃s guaranteed. Consider for example, how many wars have been fought in the name of Jesus. We may invoke his name, but its use bears no resemblance to the person who willingly died for others in a radical refusal of hate and violence. Jesus in America today mostly signifies nationalism, bigotry, sexism, and hate instead of a self-sacrificing love for all.

Recognizing that our inherited approach to learning is not the real does not condemn us to forsake it in search of another. Such a quest would be another way of holding on to the fantasy that a perfect, objective approach can exist. Instead, the failure of our inheritance (or the inheritance of many failures) is an invitation to push further into that which we seek in order to find its limits and thus hope for more. In the words of the classic children鈥檚 book Going on a Bear Hunt (Rosen, 1989), 鈥渨e can鈥檛 go over it, we can鈥檛 go under it, oh no! We鈥檝e gotta go through it.鈥� We try to hold the text in such a way that we can play, or simultaneously exist in the 鈥渁s-if鈥� realness of our world, knowing full well it鈥檚 not the full real. We listen for the liminal, impossible, thin space between the borders of our imaginary-symbolic realities and an unimaginable real that鈥檚 beyond our current possibilities.

Being a community of higher-education with an emphasis on text.soul.culture is inherently contradictory, with many contradictions baked into us as an institution (though we鈥檙e certainly not alone here). If we zoom into our name alone, we come face to face with the first of these budding contradictions. Before even addressing the tension between theology and psychology, the name 鈥溙烀朗悠碘�� presents us with an impossibility. Seattle sees itself as a symbol of progressive protesters, defying and toppling systems of oppression and control, and subverting modern forms of power. Whereas, 鈥渟chool鈥� is one of the oldest institutions in western culture responsible for maintaining the status quo and existing power dynamics. Schools are notorious for moving at a snail鈥檚 pace, and those snails are often patriarchal and paternalistic. Seattle is imagined to be techy, new, innovative, and egalitarian. Schools are thought to be archaic, slow, and hierarchical. So how can we claim to be a 天美视频 without inherently claiming a deep sense of contradiction, irony, and hypocrisy? Don鈥檛 these two signifiers (Seattle and School) sit diametrically opposed to one another?

Moreover, might this be our birthright as faculty and the community of 天美视频? Might we have been 鈥渂orn鈥� into this fight, this tension, this essential impossibility? We would argue that 天美视频 has worked to discover and to map an impossible space since its inception, if not its very conception. A school in Seattle. A progressive religious community. A theologically oriented school of psychology. We work to defy the 鈥渟houlds鈥� of today鈥檚 cultural battles, insisting on a space of impossibility. But such a space has come with a cost.

The problem with striving to exist in a space of impossibility is that we don鈥檛 arrive where we intend to go and we constantly risk (if not guarantee) falling short鈥攎istaking our re-imagining for the irruption of the real. We see the fruits of our trevails in the painful fragmentation and splitting that comes in search of the impossible real: fragmentation between faculty, between students, between departments, and between constituents. But failure is also the birthplace of creativity. And impossibility is the birthright we have been given.

Psychologically speaking, one is able to exist in contradiction through a range of responses, including dissociative splitting or integrative growth. In dissociative splitting we cut off connection with parts of ourselves (or others) so as not to face the contradiction. We resolve the dissonance of the other by ignoring, denying, or avoiding. Fragmentation becomes our deliverable. In contrast, in growth we are able to integrate these disparate parts of ourselves and find a larger sense of self that can contain the contradiction so as not to fragment. Multiplicities and simplicities intermingle and augment one another, making room for the real of the impossible.

As Doug and I look to the next 25 years, questions surface for us around integration. Maybe the despair(s) and disappointment(s) of our institution鈥檚 failures and fragmentations have thrust us headlong into a premature pursuit of integration. Lacking patience, maybe we have looked to resolve that which is irresolvable. Maybe we have chosen blame and shame, rather than engaging in the infinite game (Carse) of the impossible. How could we not?

The ghouls of our past fragmentation keep shrouding us from the essential haunting of our ghosts and shadows. In other words, the real territory of ghosts and shadows gets supplanted by maps and simulations of ghouls gone dissociative. Students confused by the insistence on theological education, donors concerned by progressive policies, staff frustrated by distant faculty, instructors defensively teaching against one another: all of these are symptoms of a system caught (and not always held) by its own impossible mission. But what if this wasn鈥檛 the end of the story? What if better angels call to us from within (the real)? In the words of our president, Dr. J. Derek McNeil, could we continue our work to belong to one another? Could we give up on our (con)quest of integration in service of something deeper and richer? Could we endeavor to reach past the edge of our imagination with a foolish hope that something else could become possible in search of the impossible real?

Durable Beauty

Watch that old fire as it flickers and dies
That once blessed the household and lit up our lives
It shone for the friends and the clinking of glasses
I’ll tend to the flame, you can worship the ashes
-“Ashes” by The Longest Johns

In the state of Washington at the moment, there鈥檚 a burn ban in place鈥攁 ban that is intended to help protect our forests from the fires of careless campers. It is a powerful reminder of the dangers of how untended flames can ravage and destroy. The dream of the founders of 天美视频 was one such flame. It has burned brightly for 25 years with the beauty of 鈥渟erving God and neighbor through transforming relationships,鈥� but it has also burned people in its path. The ghosts and shadows of 天美视频 point to the damage that this flame has wrought, rewriting a narrative of transformation into one of hurt and shame. As we close this short project and look to the next 25 years, we are left with a choice鈥攚e can tend to the flame or we can worship the ashes. We can linger with an ideal, or we can work to engage with the real.

Our previous reflections on ghosts and shadows have circled around the concepts of shame and beauty. There is a beauty that calls to us at this school: A flame that ignited the founders to dream up this institution and that has sparked in each of us as we have joined. But that beauty has also faded, at times, and the flame has flickered. Surviving COVID together, for instance, was one such time when our flame faltered. We have each felt the disintegration of fire-to-ash as the reality of our efforts have often failed to match the dream of our hopes. These losses carry with them the shame of failure鈥攁 shame of having caused harm, of not tending the fire in ways that would or could bring warmth and sustenance to all. The beauty that inspires can鈥檛 be separated from the shame that exposes and hides. Shame and beauty, image and real, ashes and flame鈥攖hese entities have encircled us with and in this project as we have reflected on the ghosts and shadows at the school and its ancestral learning communities. How can we tend to the flame that first called us to this school? How do we hold on when that flame flickers? How do we work to cultivate an enduring beauty?

The hope of enduring (or durable) beauty takes us back to the difference between the image and the real. The danger of a dream is that we will believe we鈥檝e arrived and then work to ensure that everyone else thinks so too鈥攃alcifying the dream into a static image. It is so easy to mistake the image of ourselves for the actuality of ourselves. The image is mesmerizing. It鈥檚 exciting to see oneself in the world鈥攖o be seen as something beautiful. And so the image can captivate us. Like Narcissus staring at his own reflection, we can be lured into adoring our image while our body begins to decay. We can cling to the ashes of an image that was, while the fire dies or blazes out of control. The danger of trying to save the world is one will begin to think of themselves as a savior. And so the image can become the antithesis of the real鈥攖he ashes are not the flame. If we are so taken by how we look from the outside, we forsake how we actually are on the inside.

Thus the image will never quite fit. For example, what does 鈥渓ove well鈥� actually mean in real time? The image is an appearance, not a reality. It is always from someone else鈥檚 view. The real of ourselves, however, is something else. Ghosts and shadows haunt us from the ashes of our past, exposing the gap between the image and reality. At times, our interpretations have missed the mark. Our attempts at equity (or lack thereof) have fallen short. To the extent that we have aligned ourselves with the image of what we wished to be, our ghosts have turned to ghouls鈥攕haming us and pointing to the ashes saying the dream died long ago. Ghouls threaten to tear apart the beautiful image we carry of who we are, and so we ignore, avoid, and hide from them. But if we can hope past our image, if we can faith beyond our appearance鈥攖o a real that is just past our perceptions鈥攖hen maybe we can tend to the flame that first burned in our collective imaginations. Perhaps then we might welcome the ghosts as ancestors, reminding us of who we are, where we鈥檝e been, and helping us actually become something more. More often than we might know or imagine, ancestors hold vigil, lurking as ghosts in shadows, waiting and wanting for their advocacy to be realized.

So an enduring beauty is one that faiths/trusts/hopes beyond the imaginable. It points to the impossible real. Enduring beauty is not protecting an image, but recovering a connection鈥攊ntegrating into a more whole self. It is beauty that saves us, and beauty that sets us free.

Flames are dynamic and so is our dream: the dream to be(come) a learning community in the Pacific Northwest who engages in Christian theological education in new and life-giving ways, the dream to steward a counseling program that trains practitioners to engage with their own lives and stories in ways that pave the way for them to do something similar on behalf of others. The dream to transform, even as we seek transformation with and for others. If we at the school are to strive for an enduring beauty we need to be able to face the shame of our failures and to tell a more whole story of who we have been and where our limitations have been made manifest. We need the ghosts to remind us of what we don鈥檛 want to know. We need for them to champion us from the shadows, and we hold hope that that which is brought into the light is no longer dark, and will become a source of light (Ephesians 5:13).

At a conference recently, a presenter offered a differential between temporal and enduring self-care. It connects with what we鈥檝e been describing with the image and the real as well as the mission of 天美视频鈥攁nd the light it hopes to bring to the darkness around it. We are a school that was founded on and with beauty and desire. The aim of desire is desire itself鈥攁lways moving us towards more, towards the infinite, the eternal, and the Divine. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free (Galatians 5:1). Freedom comes at the intersection(s) of particularity between beauty and shame. If 鈥渢ransforming relationships鈥� is a primary to our mission, then desire and beauty must be at the center. And if desire and beauty are at our heart鈥檚 center, shame will accompany and surround our sanguinity.

The Irish poet and theologian, John O鈥橠onohue, believed that beauty encircles truth. So, in other words, truth without beauty is not true or complete. But here is the thing about beauty: to engage it, one must engage with the particularity of what makes something or someone beautiful. Beauty is specific and can鈥檛 be standardized鈥攊t is unique. And when one engages it, what one will find is that beauty and shame chase after the same thing鈥攑articularity. This indicates that an avoidance of shame is a refusal of beauty. If we fail to listen to the shame that could admonish us and goad us on, we turn our backs on the phoenix that may just rise again from the ashes. How has our hubris kept us from goodness? Where have we chosen power over truth? How has our intolerance for shame and our unwillingness to listen kept us from engaging the horizon(s) of beauty that sprawled out before us?

Flames are particular, and so are the dangers related to such flames. Flames that transform particular objects (like firewood) into ashes render said particularities nondescript and unrecognizable. The interplay of flames and ashes cannot be avoided by an institution or community with transformation as its root value or lifeline. Ashes cannot be avoided when one lights a flame. But much can be done with how one tends to the flame before, during, and after the time(s) in which it鈥檚 been lit.

And so it goes that we find ourselves at the intersections of 25 years. We鈥檝e made it this far (25 years in), and our eyes are on the journey ahead (the next 25 years). As faculty, shame comes at us in two directions: It comes from our history and our predecessors, or the ashes that have accumulated over time. It also comes from those learners who are trying to make their way through graduate programs when society has trained them according to the rules of whiteness (dominance, mastery), consumerism (entertainment, service) capitalism (dissatisfaction), social media (stupification, ala Jonathan Haidt), the multiple fragilities associated with patriarchy, (cancel/call-out culture paired with glorified and protracted adolescence), and a political landscape that only knows how to cultivate identity through opposition and hatred. As such streams merge both in and around us, in the words of our colleague, Dr. Monique Gadson, it鈥檚 our job to be(come) a non-anxious presence in the face of that shame: a people who are willing and able to tolerate and engage the shame that circulates, listening to its direction and admonishment, but not personalizing that which isn鈥檛 personal. And isn鈥檛 that an essential rubric when engaging this way?

Shame is a social emotion. It is an experience of the eyes (per Gershen Kaufman). Shame speaks in particularities, even when it is institutionalized and therefore ubiquitous. For instance, it is particular moments in classrooms in the midst of disruption that linger: it鈥檚 particular words that are spoken or not spoken, it is in the way a question is asked, it is in the way a response is given, that shame leaves its mark. Likewise, beauty lingers in its particularity. Specific ways that words or gazes are held, energies engaged, or stories honored can move mountains and build bridges in ways that were previously unimaginable. And so we see the inherent tensions that abide in the spaces between beauty and shame. If abstraction is the image, then particularity is the real which is ever-evolving and eluding our grasp. We touch it, see it, taste it, but only for a time. And then we are left with its haunt and a decision about what we鈥檒l turn to next. It is only in vulnerability that we make room for the beautiful and enduring real. It is only in vulnerability that our posture remains open to learning: a learning that might just lead to transformation.

So where are you and we called to learn together in this season ahead? What is (y)our fire? What is (y)our desire? What are the particularities of beauty that call to you and to us? Where does shame haunt you and us, and where might it admonish us, if we remained open to the beauty alongside which it resides?

As we prepare for a new cohort to join us, we continue to re-member that every new cohort re-imagines and re-shapes the particularities that make us 天美视频. Our Benedictine friends proclaim: 鈥淎lways we begin again.鈥� Tending a flame is not a static job. Flames require new fuel and more oxygen to stay alive. But beginning again does not mean that we forget our past or we deny our ghosts and shadows, pretending like ghouls and angels don鈥檛 remain ever active and disruptive in and around us. Beginning again means staying connected to the dynamic dream that continues to call to us from the real instead of worshiping the ashes of what once was.

For a long time, the Practicum process was a thumbprint of our curricula here at 天美视频. It was a primary place where transformation was sought, and even sometimes birthed. Sparks lit into flames with countless stories of beauty and growth. But there were times when those flames also burned and scarred鈥攁nd often the most vulnerable were hurt the worst. The ashes of the dream of practicum began piling higher as the fire of what had sparked in the beginning blazed out of control. Tending the flame of our practicum processes required a reimagining and reshaping into something more boundaried and equitable, which includes our newly designed Listening Lab curriculum, where our work is to listen to ourselves listening. Our incoming cohort will be invited to deep listening, with the help and support of their learning community partners around them. No class or curriculum is ever perfect or complete, but we are proud of who and what we are becoming as we all work to listen differently鈥揳nd maybe even more deeply鈥搕han we have before. This project that we have set out on brings us back to the same place: deep listening. Deep listening unto enduring beauty.

There is so much goodness in this place. Good people, good processes, good curricula, and sometimes good coffee. But this goodness is susceptible to being reduced to the ashes of what once was鈥攚orshiping the image and denying the real. Ghosts and shadows call us to the particularity of beauty and shame that sits at the heart of a school that values transformation. We have to tell and retell the stories to which the ghosts and shadows point us, listening into and unto a non-anxious presence that cultivates fire but does so within healthy limits.

Here we have spent a season together in deep listening and reflection. Our hope has been to point to something much more impossible than finding and settling blame. We have hoped for a space wherein streams of shame that flow generationally towards each other can find engagement and restoration in a community, engaging in processes of deep listening with each other in non-personalized, non-defensive, non-anxious ways. Our lineage is one of fire and ashes, ghosts and shadows, ghouls and angels, shame and beauty. Ghosts and shadows can haunt us in ghoulish ways. But they can also point to realities that must be engaged for the transformation made possible through love to have its way.

If you are an alum of this place and your fire burns bright, may it be so! If you are an alum of this place and you find yourself covered with the soot and ashes of a dream that burned you into silence and isolation, may something of your own heart鈥檚 goodness compel you to continue to spark鈥攁nd may you know that you are never alone. For those of us who carry the mantle of faculty and staff, may we tend to the flame of 天美视频. May we honor our ghosts by acknowledging their presence and by engaging with the ancestry to which they return. May we continue to listen to shadows of shame鈥攁nd to the beauty and desire that surrounds it鈥攏ever being defined by what it might tell us, but always being open to what we might hear and discover. May we resist the lure of an image of ourselves and listen instead for the real of who we are and can become.

Add to the conversation: share your thoughts with Dr. Paul Hoard or Dr. Doug Shirley.

The post Ghosts & Shadows: A Conversation Series appeared first on 天美视频 of Theology & Psychology.

What drew you to 天美视频 and to the Master of Arts in Theology & Culture degree?

It’s a really unique program. There are not a lot of programs in the country that have all the elements that 天美视频 brings. There are lots of places where you can have an arts focus while you’re in seminary, but there aren’t a lot of places that couple it with the personal work that is a trademark of 天美视频.听

I had enrolled at a different school, in fact, when I had a conversation with a friend of mine from my childhood youth group days, actually, another alum named Andrew Bauman. So Andrew and I go way back. We had reconnected over social media, and we were finding that we had a lot of things in common. Through re-engaging in conversation with him, I discovered 天美视频. At that point, I think it was actually Mars Hill [Graduate School].听

When I was putting this other program in conversation with 天美视频 and trying to make that decision, I realized (which was affirmed in retrospect) that while the other school would’ve really challenged me academically, not that I didn’t find rigor at 天美视频 as well, it wouldn’t have asked me to do as much interpersonal work. Especially given the field that I was coming from and that I’ve found myself in, I think the interpersonal work is just as valuable as the intellectual work. And so when I had to decide where I wanted to spend my resources of time, energy, and money, that was a big deciding factor for me.

What were your expectations and hopes when you started the MATC program?

People come to 天美视频 in a lot of different places personally, theologically, and spiritually. And I would say that when I came in, I was in want of reconstruction. At least during my time, there was a lot of deconstruction happening for people. But I had already done that. I grew up in a really conservative evangelical family and had been through a period of time in my spiritual life where I had walked away from a lot of what I had been taught growing up. At the time that I came to 天美视频, I had framed it as a way to reclaim a spiritual life because I knew deep down that there was truth in what I had grown up believing. I was trying to find the fragments that still felt true to me while putting aside the things that did not. And 天美视频 was the ground zero for that reconstruction. And so that was my hope for coming through 天美视频, and I think it delivered that for me.

Vocationally, I was trying to figure out how to integrate what I do as an artist with a larger sense of purpose in the world and a sense of identity and personal meaning. And so this is another place that the 天美视频 is unique: I felt like there was just a lot of freedom at 天美视频 to be able to explore my discipline and put it in conversation with the theological and psychological approaches that are the intersections that happened there at the school.

What was your experience like as a student?

It was great. There are moments that are intentionally challenging but you come out on the other side transformed. And I think that is the whole point and purpose of the process that the leadership has laid the groundwork for. So there were people in the school, both faculty and colleagues, who fostered my creativity. Paul Steinke was huge for helping me to come to a wider understanding of what community is, which has been a big part of my work going forward. On a theological side, working with Chelle Stearns and being in conversation with her about both the arts and the theological approaches was foundational for me. And then Ron Ruthruff was also very important for me in thinking about how I take my art from not just a personal contemplation but giving it a sense of action and building our personal endeavors into doing something that is towards the good of the world and the good of God’s work in the world.

How has your time at 天美视频 shaped your vocation and your life journey?

We’re back on the East Coast now. Greenville, South Carolina, which is where I currently am, has always sort of felt like home to us. It’s where my wife’s family is, and my family is only about 45 minutes away up in North Carolina.听

I’ve been continuing to work in the theater. I’m the Director of Education and Community Engagement at a small professional theater here in Greenville called The Warehouse Theater. And I also direct plays. So that’s my artistic side. I’m an artist, administrator, and educator, And 天美视频 has had a lot vocationally to do with that path. While I had done some work in arts education prior to coming to graduate school, 天美视频 really was instrumental in shaping my understanding of pedagogy and how education can be not just an academic endeavor but an embodied and transformational one.

天美视频 talks about fostering a vision for hope in the world: I would say that is my thesis as an artist. What I’m trying to do is create a reality, even if it’s just for two hours, within a theatrical space, where people can imagine the world differently or imagine the world as they would hope it to be. And sometimes that’s in contrast to what they see on stage. Sometimes we have to perform the anti-hero as well, but it’s all in conversation with a hopeful construct. And my understanding of hope was entirely shaped by the work that I did in Seattle. So that’s been super-foundational for me.听

And then on the personal side, I honestly don’t know who I would be today without my time at 天美视频. I would just be a vastly different person. I think my marriage is different. My ability to parent is different. My ability to relate to my family of origin is different. I don’t know who I would be. It’s hard for me to imagine that and it’s all for the better. So there are times when I think about the investment of money and resource and energy, especially the years that we were in Seattle, where it was away from our family and across the country. And as much as I wrestle with that, I always come back to the idea that I just don’t know who I would be if not for that. And I don’t really want to. So for all of its sacrifices and challenges, I just can’t imagine things differently.听

More about the Master of Arts in Theology & Culture (MATC) at 天美视频

Learn more about our Master of Arts in Theology & Culture offering at an upcoming admissions event or talk with our enrollment team.

The post Alumni Spotlight: Q&A with Jay Briggs MATC ’14 appeared first on 天美视频 of Theology & Psychology.

This is something truly spectacular about relationships鈥攖hat we can make something together that we wouldn鈥檛 have made on our own. -Sarah Steinke MACP ’19

Curious about alumni partnerships, Jocelyn Skillman,聽 as Supervisor of Alumni Outreach, recently had the opportunity to interview , MATC 鈥�17 and MACP 鈥�19. Together these two alumni bring their training, gifts, and strengths 鈥� Mary as an eco theologian and spiritual ecologist and Sarah as a psychotherapist, yoga instructor, and poet 鈥� to their collaborative work, as they guide pilgrimages to Iona, Scotland, where travelers and seekers explore the rich heritage of Celtic spirituality and sacred rewilding practices, synching the body and the soul in this journey.

How long have you known each other? How did you get/stay connected?

Sarah Steinke (SS): The first time I remember meeting Mary was at her graduation party, which I was attending with my husband. It was our final stop before heading home, and I remember being tired and ready to call it a day. But when I stepped into Mary鈥檚 backyard, I felt a big sigh move through my body鈥攖his place was one of restoration and peace, and provocation, as here was a woman who was awake in ways I didn鈥檛 often encounter. Mary and I have been connected ever since. Our souls connect across the water from each other鈥攕he being in Seattle, and me in Bremerton鈥攁nd our bodies meet in Iona.

Mary DeJong (MD): My first time encountering Sarah was at our class鈥� (S)end event. She was leading a yoga session for soon-to-be graduates. She radiated grounded calm and centered peace. I was captivated! I had already been guiding pilgrimages to Iona for some time, and had been imagining a movement component to complement the journey. Encountering Sarah enlivened this imagination as the way she held the space and offered guidance through the practice resonated with the hope I held. Sarah and my friendship has deepened over the years of co-guiding pilgrimages to Iona. The nature of our lives here in the Pacific Northwest doesn鈥檛 support us seeing one another very often; but when we meet on Iona, it is as if time and distance folds on itself and our friendship picks up where we left off, sending exponentially deeper taproots into the relational terrain we now hold between us.

Please tell us more about your Pilgrimages to Iona! What do you offer? What do you hope to share and gift?

SS: Mary has cultivated a soul journey that includes not only the bright goodness of adventure, but also shadow work, where we encounter the deep, dark underbelly we鈥檝e forgotten is ours. On this pilgrimage, as we walk the earth鈥檚 body, we also walk the land of our bodies. Through pilgrimage in our bodies, we come to know our internal land, encountering the places we haven鈥檛 breathed into in some time, the places we鈥檝e forgotten or maybe are afraid to enter, and we begin to rewild, and reconnect to our innate wholeness. All the while, we鈥檙e held by the earth鈥檚 heartbeat, and her breath of tide.

MD: The Iona Pilgrimage aims to provide a contemporary way to experience the archetypal stages of a transformational journey to an ancient holy site, and in particular, a journey that will re-awaken and reconnect participants to the reality of a sacred living Earth. Iona is singular in its role within the Christian church: it is considered to be the birthplace of Celtic Christianity, a stream of spirituality that integrated the Christian mission with the Celtic imagination of divine animism.

provides programmatic support in re-engaging a Celtic worldview, which resonates deeply with the more modern expressions of spiritual ecology and eco theology. Every aspect of our programming is influenced by the underlying theme of sacred interrelationship.

How did this Iona Pilgrimage vision come about? Have the contours of it changed over time?

SS: While the contours of this pilgrimage have been shaped by Mary with her teachers and the community of Iona, my collaboration with her is ever-changing, as together we lean into spontaneity and play. This is something truly spectacular about relationships鈥攖hat we can make something together that we wouldn鈥檛 have made on our own.

MD: I actually started taking groups to Iona in 2004 as part of a vocational discernment program I was asked to run for Seattle Pacific University. As I folded the program into my own Waymarkers work, I enhanced this offering to explicitly move one through the archetypal stages of the pilgrimage journey within a Celtic spirituality context to support a journey of sacred eco-awakening. In 2018 Sarah began to offer the yoga component, which was an integral part of the emergence of this program. Synching the body and the soul are paramount to a journey of transformation.

What’s your favorite part(s) about your pilgrimages? Any special memories/images you’d want to share with alumni?

SS: My favorite part of pilgrimage is coming to the end of my planning, and to the end of me. Iona is a place of wilderness, where plans and contingencies are thwarted, and where the invitation is to simply be. Though Spirit is ever present, Her great lap is the North Beach.

MD: My favorite moment is the calm confidence that Spirit has guided all the efforts to create the space on Iona for precious souls to show up and do such beautiful and challenging work. It is bearing witness to the unfolding, the remembering, and the reconnecting.

How has your understanding of God, community, Love deepened or changed? How has your own spirituality been informed, formed, evolved through these pilgrimages?

SS: My understanding of God has changed as I鈥檝e allowed myself to be known, by fellow pilgrims, by Mary, the land, by the rocks and water, by my Self, by God. The journey is always different, but each time I walk away with blessing that I couldn鈥檛 have imagined had I not stepped into the stream of Life鈥檚 unfolding.

MD: I was raised within the church, and quite simply, I would say that these pilgrimages to Iona have reminded me that the Holy One is awaiting our gaze and our adoring presence outside of church walls and can be encountered through the watching eye of a puffin, through the blasting wind, through the clarifying turquoise waters of the sea and the dolphins who play within them.

Are there any academic/formational touchstones from your graduate education that continue to inform your work now?

SS: One of the gifts I鈥檝e been given from 天美视频 is the way, albeit clumsy at times, this community seeks to live out encounter, invitation, embrace, recognizing the sovereignty of one another. I was given a robust relational education in a courageous place that didn鈥檛 always get it right but that wanted to make it right.

MD: My graduate and postgraduate work has been steeped in the intersection of ecology and religion, as well as cultural expressions of myth and deep story. 天美视频 taught me the importance of knowing our stories and how they interrelate. This includes knowing the stories of our soul, the soil, and the Sacred!

The post Alumni Spotlight: A Conversation with Mary DeJong MATC ’17 and Sarah Steinke MACP ’19 appeared first on 天美视频 of Theology & Psychology.

In this interview, Tara shares her artistic process and describes how her time at 天美视频 shaped her understanding of herself and her work.

What draws you to your art?聽

I am a collage artist using paper already saturated with color, pattern, and movement, to create beauty. I love color and pattern. I鈥檓 overwhelmed by beauty, the way it hits me. I find myself drawn to this idea of the encounter with beauty, the pursuit of beauty, as described by John O鈥橠onoghue, a fellow Irish mystic. I was born in Ireland, lived there for 20 years. and studied fashion design there as well.

The painter Gustav Klimt is one of your inspirations. Can you share more about your artistic process?

I find myself to be more undone and enraptured by Klimt鈥檚 pieces than by looking at flowers or a tree. I enjoy being inspired by other techniques and styles. There鈥檚 something about being immersed, looking at all the angles, getting to know something inside out. I know why Klimt put the yellow there. I鈥檓 exploring how deeply can I know this. I want to know this completely until it鈥檚 in my cells. I鈥檓 creating beauty because I鈥檓 trying to make myself: if I鈥檓 making beauty, I鈥檓 identifying myself with beauty.

I鈥檝e also created originals when inspiration comes to me, for example, my collection on Earned Attachment, collages that depict a father or mother holding a child. I didn鈥檛 have the language at the time to explain it. It took a few years later, when I was at this school and then I understood it: I was unconsciously trying to heal, trying to create attachment with the Godhead.

In my art, I connect to parts of myself, my unconscious, that need to be healed or processed. I have been surprised by what came out at the end in my art: God and I were co-creating. I鈥檓 coming to trust that there鈥檚 a purpose here, just go with it.

Often my art is an act of worship, to love, to beauty, to healing, to God. A way to extol. Some of the collage pieces are pieces of worship to someone I love, a moment in time that had a lot of meaning. Holding it up to the light and sharing it with others even though it鈥檚 not translatable. This was glory. That person was glory.

How did you evolve as an artist during graduate school?

Over the four years at 天美视频, it took me most of the time to own the name 鈥渁rtist鈥�. It didn鈥檛 sit in my body yet. That changed while I was in school.听

I love how 天美视频 gave me words. I have a drive to express myself through poetry, art, and papers for school on topics I鈥檓 passionate about. Graduate school helped me find words for what I鈥檓 trying to express in my right brain and didn鈥檛 have words for. I feel like it did a lot of the work of integration. Getting the words and getting the awareness that came in school came together well with my art.听

What drew you to the Master of Arts in Theology and Culture at 天美视频?

When I came to the school, I knew I had things to say to the world. It kept getting bigger and bigger. I wanted direction and guidance, to know what that was.听

How did graduate school shape who you are today?

I鈥檓 now working as a program therapist in shelters with traumatized women. At 天美视频,聽 I took all the psychology classes I could. I loved the mix. It was perfect for me. I didn鈥檛 want the limitations of licensure. I love people and I want to be in trauma spaces with people. I want to live with people and heal together. I want to speak to people where they are at. It鈥檚 worth it if I can speak to their shame, a sentence, a look, a touch. I think everyone needs someone to look them in the eye. Before 天美视频, I would have amazing connections with people in 30 seconds. That impact matters to me. Now I know what鈥檚 happening, how significant it is, the neuropsychology, and I love all of it.听

The post Art on our Walls: Tara Hubbard’s Collages appeared first on 天美视频 of Theology & Psychology.

Lori Bailey, MATC 2022

Animating the Healing of the World: Engaging Christian Theories of Atonement, Redemption, and Restoration with an Aesthetic Theology of Japanese Anime

Abstract

Mark Deiter, MATC 2022

A Verbal Fantasia on Byzantine Chant

Abstract

Mary Pauline Diaz-Frasene, MATC 2022

KALOOB: Articulations on Grief, Diaspora and Eucharist as Spaces for Power in Precarity

Abstract

Tara Hubbard, MATC 2022

Restored Connection: Lessons in Belonging Course

Abstract

Brian Schroeder, MATC 2022

Birthed from the Skull of a God, or, The Things We All Carry Around: An Exploration of the Reciprocal Ontology of the Powers to Humanity

Abstract

Christina Bergevin, MDiv 2022

Toward a Practicing Church: The Evolution of Sunday Morning

Abstract

Jonathan Washburn, MATC 2022

Spotlights and Shadows: Narcissism, Megachurch, and Me

Abstract

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These new 39-credit degrees come as 天美视频 recognizes learners are looking for professional degrees with streamlined programs and highly applicable skills for the ways they are serving in the world. Previously, 天美视频鈥檚 48-credit Master of Arts in Theology & Culture allowed students to choose from three tracks (Interdisciplinary Studies, Global & Social Partnership, or Theology, Imagination & The Arts). These tracks have been reimagined and embedded into the integrative curriculum of the new degree programs. In these two-year programs, students engage both theory and practice through a contextual and applied orientation toward theology. Each of these degrees are composed of three elements: our common curriculum, a series of MATC core courses, and a set of degree-specific classes and learning projects built toward the arts, community development, or ministry.

鈥淲e are preparing leaders to engage culturally complex communities and innovative expressions of Christian faith into the future,鈥� says Dr. J. Derek McNeil, President and Provost of 天美视频. 鈥淚 am hopeful that these training degrees bring about a more balanced student body, decrease the burden of student debt, and that they better serve the needs of both those who come to us looking for training and the communities our students inhabit.鈥� Funding through the Pathways for Tomorrow Initiative supports this programmatic evolution for the school鈥檚 Theology & Culture degree as well as continued development of innovative programming aimed at training and supporting those leading faith communities.

鈥淭he Theology faculty have worked hard to develop an integrated curriculum that allows students to have in-depth study in their particular vocational pathway while retaining a cohort model that encourages cross-disciplinary thinking and engagement with colleagues.鈥� says Dr. Misty Anne Winzenried, Dean of Teaching and Learning. 鈥淲ith the low-residency model and the curriculum redesign, students are invited to see their own contexts as part of the learning experience. The ministries, organizations, and communities that students are already working in and members of become part of our collective classroom.鈥�

天美视频 will begin accepting applications for these three programs in February for the first cohort to begin in Fall of 2022. Current students enrolled in the MATC degree will be allowed to finish out and graduate under the existing curriculum. For more information on the three new degree programs, please visit the MATC landing page.

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Our mission and values have guided us as we have listened to the needs of our learning community and sought to discern the future of our graduate degree programs. We train people to be competent in the study of text, soul, and culture in order to serve God and neighbor through transforming relationships. While the pandemic has brought immeasurable changes, loss, and disruption, it has also taught us much about the needs of graduate students and the opportunities for new modalities that allow for contextual distance and residential learning that are more integrated with the lives and communities where our students live.

鈥淭he changes that we are making are not merely driven by crisis; instead, they are significant transitions that will change much of what we are familiar with, while inviting us to explore and co-create new ways of training people in an ever deepening understanding of what is needed to serve God and neighbor through the fields of theology and psychology,鈥� said Dr. J. Derek McNeil, President of 天美视频. 鈥淲e have always been a community composed of learners from a variety of contexts, cultures, and places. As we lean into what鈥檚 next, we seek to deepen and widen our understanding of who we are and learn to carry out our mission in partnership with learners as they are embedded in their own contexts.鈥�

Low-residency programs are a model of higher education that involve periodic in-person intensive gatherings with online coursework in between those gatherings. Students can remain in their home location and travel to our Seattle-based residencies for on-campus gatherings a few times per year. Students in low-residency programs will continue to have access to our campus in Seattle to meet for study groups, use the library and study spaces, and meet with faculty for office hours and may choose to participate in student life online and on-campus.

鈥淚n the last 15 months, we learned much about how to deliver high-quality relational and contextual education to students online. We’re pleased to welcome a wider range of students into our learning communities, and we know how important it is to be together as a learning community in the same physical space to learn together in an embodied way. The low-residency model allows for the best of both,鈥� said Dr. Misty Anne Winzenried, Associate Dean of Teaching and Learning.

[UPDATE July 19, 2021] ATS (Association of Theological Schools), one of our accrediting agencies, has approved our petition to provide comprehensive distance education. Students should check the school’s COVID-19 response for updates on campus safety measures beginning with the fall term.

Current students are encouraged to connect with the Academics team for specific information and program requirements.

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