Sacred Archives - ��Ƶ of Theology & Psychology

Learning Beyond Walls

��Ƶ — Wed, 10 Jul 2019 18:26:01 +0000

We believe that transformative education—the kind of learning that gets in your bones and changes how you see the world—cannot be contained to the classroom. When we go outside our building to learn from others, encounter new stories, and wrestle with hard questions amid the messiness and complexity of our world, that’s when the ideas and theories from the classroom are given new life.

Earlier this year, two summer-term classes took ��Ƶ students beyond our walls (and beyond Seattle). In Engaging Global Partnerships, Dr. Ron Ruthruff, Associate Professor of Theology & Culture, and Cheryl Goodwin, Director of Institutional Assessment & Library Services, led a group of students to Kenya, inviting them to let their assumptions, beliefs, and practices be challenged and clarified by the stories of a place and the people who serve it. That same month, spiritual director and pilgrimage guide (MA in Theology & Culture, ‘12) and spiritual director and retired faculty member Tom Cashman journeyed to the Sonoran Desert in Arizona to guide students through a pilgrimage grounded in the ancient Christian tradition of desert spirituality.

Engaging Global Partnerships in Kenya

“We’re taking a deep look at the history of colonialism and religion, and the relationship between a place and the people who inhabit it—especially in places of wounding. How can we enter those wounds in a way that is honoring to others’ stories and also helps us reimagine our shared future?”
–Dr. Ron Ruthruff

Pilgrimage to the Sonoran Desert

“During our time in the desert, we explored the ancient Christian tradition of desert spirituality with an emphasis on the apophatic way and the contemplative path. The word apophatic means ‘without image,’ and during our time in the desert we sought to abandon our expectations and preconceived notions of God through themes such as awareness, inviting us to non-dual consciousness; surrender, inviting us toward a posture of kenosis or self-emptying; and encounter, inviting us to be present to the desert, the Divine, and ourselves with loving indifference or non-attachment. Ultimately, the fierce landscape of the desert served as teacher and guide on our journey, teaching us how to tend to and be with the sacred and fierce landscape of the soul within.”
–Lacy Clark Ellman

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Nurturing Body and Soul Through Rituals, Movement, and Story

��Ƶ — Mon, 13 May 2019 18:20:34 +0000

All this month we’re exploring the art of nurturing identity and formation in a way that clarifies calling and sustains deep, meaningful work in the world. We’re intentionally using a bodily, sensory word like nurture because we believe that this is not merely an intellectual pursuit but one that calls for our full selves—body, mind, and spirit.

Of course it is all too easy to tune out our bodies, to ignore how they communicate our need for nurture. What are the practices that help us listen to our bodies? What are the rhythms and rituals that connect us to those deep, vulnerable parts of our bodies and souls that are crying out for care? Our students and alumni have been wrestling with these questions in beautiful, creative ways for many years, and we often turn to their voices when we need to remember how to be present in our bodies. Today we’re sharing a few of those voices—thoughtful presentations inviting us to engage the rituals, rhythms, and age-old practices that draw us back to our deeply human need for nurture. And if you’d like to join us in the gift of learning from the integrative and insightful work of our students, save the date for the annual Integrative Project Symposium on May 31.

At our second annual Symposia in 2016, Heather Stringer (, ‘10) presented “Breaking Frozen Seas: How Rituals of the Body Transform Clients and Communities,” exploring how intentional, sensual rituals open us to learning from our bodies as we pursue healing from trauma. “I think our body longs to teach us, it longs to mother us, it longs to remind us,” says Heather. “And without ritual, we foreclose creativity and shared open language about what is happening, and we dissociate.”

“I think our body longs to teach us, it longs to mother us, it longs to remind us.”

Also at Symposia 2016, Jenny McGrath (MACP, ‘15) talked about “Healing Trauma Through Movement,” sharing how dance had been an avenue of healing and growth in her own life, and how movement and dance can be used therapeutically to bring counseling and rehabilitation for trauma survivors. Jenny shares about her work in northern Uganda, researching the therapeutic power of movement in the wake of war and exploring how dance can help communicate emotional realities that are beyond language. “We are affected not just neurologically, but neuro-physiologically when we go through trauma. We are not just floating heads,” says Jenny. “So there needs to be some form of engagement with our bodies if we are truly to develop a sustainable model for people to recover from their trauma.”

At Symposia 2017 Jenny Wade (MACP, ’13), a therapist and founder of in Seattle, shared about “Finding Beauty in Embodied Resistance.” In this profound talk, Jenny starts with the disgust that so many people feel toward their bodies, and the million ways we are taught to believe that our bodies are not worth trusting. “I believe that bodies are good,” says Jenny. “They are good, and they are wise, and they are beautiful. […] But trauma, both collective and personal, separates us from the felt experience of our body. When we experience trauma, our body feels foreign. Our body doesn’t feel like it’s ours.”

(For more on this, we also deeply appreciated J. Knox Burnett’s (MACP, ’13) presentation, )

When we are more fully connected to our bodies, we are more able to attune to spiritual practices and soul care. This is much of the work that Lacy Clark Ellman (MA in Theology & Culture, ’12) fosters in her work as a spiritual director. In 2017, Lacy presented “Beyond Borders: Cultivating Awareness, Resilience, and Transformation through the Practice of Pilgrimage.” In 2017 she shared about the ancient art of pilgrimage and the archetypal human stories that have so much to reveal about the journey of separation, initiation, and return. “This adventure of the hero and journey of the pilgrim is built within each one of us,” says Lacy. “And claiming it as our own, we are aligning with our divine imprint as seekers of the sacred.”

(Kate Davis [Master of Divinity, ’15] also powerfully reflected on the transformative insights of ancient human stories in her Integrative Project presentation, )

Across cultures and generations, these categories of initiation, wilderness, and pilgrimage have been central to questions of what it means to be fully human—and yet for many of us, they feel so foreign today. That’s why we appreciated this Symposia 2016 presentation from Doug Wheeler (MA in Counseling, 1987), “Navigating the Masculine Journey with ‘Sherpas’ Nouwen, Jung, and Peck.” Doug reflects on the archetypes that help clarify the terrain and trajectory of human pilgrimage. “There is no entry fee, but it will cost you plenty to make this journey. Pack a lunch, lose your map, travel lightly.”

On May 31 we’ll gather to hear from students in our Master of Divinity and MA in Theology & Culture programs as they present on the projects that serve as a capstone of their time in graduate school. The Integrative Project Symposium is always an inspiring, grounding, and thought-provoking time. All are welcome!

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Like an Unnamed Woman

Jo-Ann Badley, Ph.D. — Mon, 29 Apr 2019 17:00:31 +0000

Perhaps one of the most famous figures in Western art is the �ʾ��à — Mary holding the dead body of her son as she grieves his death(1). In the famous statue by Michelangelo, she seems to be a young woman deep in thought, whereas Giovanni Bellini paints her as an old woman which accords better with the gospel narrative. In many paintings she is clearly grieving. Sometimes we see her in tears—for example, as painted by Andrea Mantegna—and sometimes she seems to have fainted—as painted by Sandro Botticelli. Or, as painted by Enguerrand Quarton, we see her in prayer, often with the disciple John (2).

All these works of art imagine the first Good Friday. They capture the range of emotions that Christians feel on this dark day, allowing us to place ourselves in the person of Mary who mourned her dead child. There is surely no grief more profound than the grief parents feel at the death of a child. It is unnatural for the younger to die before the older. The profound grief of the mother of Jesus models for believers a response to the unnatural death of this one whom they also love.

None of the Gospels, however, suggests that Mary carried the crucified body of Jesus. According to all four Gospels, Joseph of Arimathea is given permission by Pilate to bury Jesus, and he puts the body in a secure tomb (Matt. 27:57–60, Mark 15:42–47, Luke 23:50–55, John 19:38–42). To care for the dead was an important religious observance, as John’s Gospel tells us (John 19:31), and as archaeology and other Jewish literature of the period confirm (3). Joseph, a respected Jewish leader, a good and righteous man, undertakes this religious duty for the crucified Jesus (Mark 15:43 and Luke 23:50). There are, of course, paintings of Joseph, but he does not hold the place in our imaginations that Mary holds.

According to the first three Gospels, this Mary isn’t even present when Joseph takes Jesus down from the cross. Matthew tells us that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, a woman without any particular pedigree, watched Joseph put Jesus in the tomb, sitting opposite it (Matt. 27:61). Mark gives us some information about the other Mary—she is the mother of Joses (Mark 15:47). Luke says that the women who watched Joseph were the ones who had followed Jesus from Galilee, and later he identifies these women as Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and some unnamed others (Luke 23:55 and 24:10). And in John’s Gospel, it is Nicodemus who helps Joseph of Arimathea bury Jesus, not Mary, the mother of Jesus (John 19:39).

This image of a grieving mother that has so captured the Christian imagination does, however, have roots in the Gospel of John. In all four Gospels, there are women watching at the crucifixion (Matt. 27:55–56, Mark 15:40–41, Luke 23:49, and John 19:25), but only in John’s Gospel do we observe the mother of Jesus among those women. John tells us that just before Jesus dies, as his final action, he commends the care of his beloved disciple to his mother and the care of his mother to his beloved disciple (John 19:26–27). Tradition has identified the beloved disciple as John, but in the gospel account, neither John nor Mary are named. Rather, both are identified by their relation to Jesus: she is called his mother, and he is called the disciple whom Jesus loved. It is this story that gives rise to the images of a mother grieving for her son and to John’s presence with her at the cross.

In John’s Gospel, Mary’s identity is both less definite and more important than in the other Gospels. On the one hand, we never learn her name in this gospel. When we read of her presence among the vigilant women at the foot of the cross and when Jesus commends her to John, her particular identity is obscured, as if her identity has been absorbed into her role as mother of the crucified one. She is not made present in this crucifixion narrative as a particular Mary—whom we would need to distinguish from other women of that name—but as the woman who brought into the world the one who is now leaving the world.

We also do not meet Mary in this gospel as a woman with a baby. Instead, we first meet her as a woman enmeshed in family and community with a grown son. She is attending a wedding in the town of Cana in the region of Galilee (John 2:1–11). Jesus and the disciples whom he had gathered before the wedding are there with her. The caterer has run out of wine, so the mother of Jesus asks him to help. Jesus puts her off—it is not the right time for him to host a wedding banquet. But she insists, and eventually Jesus complies. He turns the water in six large jars—each holding twenty or thirty gallons—into good wine, and the wedding celebration continues in style. Throughout this account, Mary is called “the mother of Jesus” or less intimately, “Woman.” We do not learn her name.

The third explicit mention of her in the gospel is when Jesus’s opponents complain about Jesus’s claim that he is the bread from heaven (John 6:41–42). They argue that they know his parents, so, clearly, Jesus has not come from heaven. They dismiss him with the words: “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?” (NRSV). Even here, Joseph is named, but Mary is not. In whatever way Jesus’s mother matters for this gospel, her particular identity is obscured.

On the other hand, the miracle at the wedding of Cana is the first sign of Jesus’s glory. His mother’s insistence that he contribute wine for the feast leads to Jesus’s first act in his public ministry. And the commendation of John to Mary and vice versa is Jesus’s last act before his death. Jesus’s mother is clearly very important to John’s story. She bookends his public ministry, invoking its beginning with her expectation that he will act on behalf of the wedding party and entering into a new relationship with the unnamed disciple at its end.

This is a very different portrait from what we find in Luke’s writings, where Mary also has a significant role. When we encounter Mary in Luke’s Gospel, we meet a young woman whose life is being interrupted by an angel. The angel asks her to join God in God’s redemptive purposes for the world. And she gives her consent. This is a comfortable image, even if it is also benevolently patriarchal. God, the higher being, comes to Mary, the lesser being, to ask her to do what only a woman can do: bear the child who will save the world. And Mary, having been given the grace to participate in the purposes of God, assents to God’s plan. As a result, she has a singular vocation as the mother of God in the history of salvation. She is Mary, the one that all generations will call blessed (Luke 1:48).

Her singular identity, derived from her particular role, is softened somewhat later in Luke’s Gospel when a woman in the crowd following Jesus suggests that Mary is particularly blessed for having born and nursed him. Jesus responds that those are blessed who hear the word of God and obey it (Luke 11:27–28). In fact, Mary is both blessed by the woman from the crowd for her unique role and blessed by Jesus for the way this unique role models an obedient response to God. In Acts, which is also believed to be the work of Luke, we find Mary praying in the upper room, a disciple among disciples, waiting for the promised Holy Spirit who would empower them all for mission (Acts 1:14). But even here, she is named.

John’s Gospel starts in a different way. He announces that “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God” (John 1:1). The Word was active in the creation of all things and became human and joined our community, shining in our darkness. There is no thought here of a woman contributing to the grand purposes of God. There is a man sent from God to witness to the light, but that man is John the Baptist. God is active accomplishing God’s purposes in God’s own way, with no mention of Mary. Neither does the ending of John’s Gospel mention her. Mary Magdalene, Simon Peter, Thomas the Twin, Nathanael of Cana, the sons of Zebedee, two others of the disciples, and the disciple whom Jesus loved all see and converse with the resurrected Jesus, but Mary is not a part of his resurrection ministry.

So how is it that, despite the evidence of the Gospels, the image of the grieving mother has so captured our imaginations? Have I drawn an entirely faithful picture of her role in John’s Gospel?

Something else needs to be said. I believe that Mary captures our imaginations because we can believe she is like us. It was her catering problem that provided the impetus for Jesus’s public ministry. It was her loss of a son that Jesus responded to at the end of his earthly life. The �ʾ��à invites us to join her in her grief because we can believe that we grieve as she grieved. In these stories about Jesus’s mother in John’s Gospel, we are not invited to participate in God’s story—that is Luke’s invitation—instead, we see that God comes to participate in our story. When her friends need more wine, their need is met and there is an abundance of good wine. In her grief at the death of her child, she is given one who will care for her. It is easy to read our lives into the life of this unnamed one who is so like us, who calls on her son to create abundant life instead of scarcity and who was so cared for by him in her sorrow. We are grateful to know that our needs and our sorrows are sufficient invitation for God to come near.

In his Farewell Discourse, as he anticipated his death and separation from his disciples, Jesus comforted them with an image of a woman giving birth (John 16:20–22) (4). He reminded them that in the hour of a woman’s labor, she has pain and anguish, just like the disciples are experiencing as they anticipate Jesus’s absence. But when the birth has been accomplished, the woman forgets the pain because of her joy in the new life of the person born. As Jesus leaves his earthly life, attending to the grief of his mother, he dies as one anticipating vindication, as a woman in labor who anticipates the joy of new life. His teaching is embodied by his mother.

And so his mother becomes not only the one with whom we identify in sorrow but also a model of hope for life and joy beyond sorrow. Mary becomes an archetype for all of us in our need and in our afflictions, and even more, as mother, in our hope for new life. If one must be born from above to enter the kingdom of God, as Jesus said to Nicodemus, the mother of Jesus guides us through that birthing process, standing at the foot of the cross (John 3:7). Grace and truth, and glory, become present like wine at Cana (John 1:14). The deep sadness of losing a child becomes the foundation for new relationships. At the point of great suffering, Jesus responds to her overwhelming loss.

To say it another way, in John’s Gospel, it is our need that evokes God’s action. And God’s action is for abundant life—even death on a cross. We grieve with his mother, and we are comforted because Jesus comforted her. By speaking of this woman as Jesus’s mother rather than identifying her as a particular woman, John calls us into an intimate relationship with God, into an affiliation that we also can inhabit because of our own need. This is in contrast to Luke, where Mary is presented as fulfilling a unique role in God’s plan of salvation, a role that does not need repetition. In this way, the mother of Jesus teaches us what to do with Holy Friday. She allows us to dwell in the grief of the world as God-bearers, watching as the light of the world is extinguished. As children of light we experience the scarcity of our existence and long for abundance. She teaches us to weep and to pray. And we know that our grief is enough because, in our tears and our prayers, we are as the woman who gave birth, the woman to whom God responded with wine and companionship. We too anticipate joy because we are confident that our tears and sorrow enjoin light and life to come to us.

This post was originally published at .

1. Timothy Verdon, Mary in Western Art, captions by Filippo Rossi (New York, NY: Hudson Hills, 2005), 140–64.
2. Michelangelo Buonarroti, �ʾ��à, c. 1498-1500, marble sculpture, ; Giovanni Bellini, �ʾ��à Martinengo, c. 1505, oil on panel,; Andrea Mantegna, Lamentation of Christ, c. 1480, tempera on canvas, ; Sandro Botticelli, Lamentation over the Dead Christ with Saints, c. 1490–1495, tempera on panel, ; Enguerrand Quarton, �ʾ��à of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, c. 1460–1470, oil on wood, .
3. See Byron R. McCane, “Burial Practices in First Century Palestine,” Bible Odyssey, .
4. Judith Lieu helpfully brings this passage into the discussion of Mary in the Gospel of John in “The Mother of the Son in the Fourth Gospel,” Journal of Biblical Literature 117 (1998): 61–77, especially 70–74.