I returned to the States nearly a year ago now after traveling overseas for 11 months. I went to Central America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Southern Africa, and Southeast Asia with about thirty others as part of a missions trip. Now I am nearly finished with my second semester of graduate school, and it is crazy to think of all I’ve experienced since beginning at Mars Hill Graduate School.

I applied, was accepted, and moved up to Seattle in a crazy last minute whirlwind. It was one of those “I’m not really sure where I’m going to live or how this will work but I know I need to go” kind of situations. My initial adjustment of going back to school after both being out of it for two years and after being overseas was difficult, and I questioned my decision pretty seriously for the first month or so. In my previous world I was busy leading youth group meetings for kids in Nicaragua, holding orphans in Swaziland, or befriending women who worked as prostitutes in Thailand. Suddenly I found myself sitting in a classroom, doing homework, and talking about issues that are close to my heart instead of actually doing anything about them.

As a part of MHGS I am continually invited to look at my own self and story – how I have specifically come to live in the world and why. Now as I look back over these past few months, I honestly feel in awe of the transformation that has begun since I have engaged this journey. Sadly it is always easier to both help and spend time with others rather than with yourself, but I have found that taking the harder path of staying put and with myself to be worth it already. I must continually be reminded of this as the temptation is often for me to run to others instead of take time for my own process. The journey has only begun…

Cori Smith enjoys working her very Seattle job as a part-time barista and is living proof that one can survive the transition from the sunny desert of Arizona to the rainy Pacific Northwest. She’s still searching for the best Mexican food in town and enjoys watching The Office and college basketball to dissociate from graduate school papers. Although she lives in Seattle now she wants to clarify that she is not, nor will she ever be, a vegetarian.

Newness comes precisely from expressed pain. Suffering made audible and visible produces hope, articulated grief is the gate of newness, and the history of Jesus is the history of entering pain and giving it voice.

-Walter Brueggemann from The Prophetic Imagination

As Verona and Burt lie on a mist-covered trampoline on a starry night in Miami, they reminisce on the country through which they have traveled, a country that has a disappointing hope. Verona and Burt have a deep hope for their daughter growing in Verona’s belly and hope for one another. What is this hope? They want their love to matter.

However, in this journey they come to know a good friend who has had five miscarriages, a brother’s wife who has left him to raise their daughter alone, a family who is obviously and overtly distant and numb, and a couple that is incredibly ostentatiously liberal that it’s hard to even watch them interact. Verona and Burt are in a hurting world with many, many hurting people and choose to weep for a world where their love could matter.

There is a weight to this conversation on the trampoline. For the world in which they live is not bestowing hope that allows them to live into the love they have come to know. Verona does not believe in marriage, specifically this kind of marriage (understandably so). It’s abundantly clear that Verona loves Burt but, the dominant culture offers no hope for her love of Burt and Burt’s love for her.  In a culture that has become anesthetized to the deep longings of their souls, how can they exist as individuals and as a couple? So, on this trampoline of lament, they have begun to re-imagine what it means to not just survive as a couple, future parents, and, most importantly, as human beings but to thrive.

Probably for the hundredth time and with tears in his eyes, Burt asks for Verona to marry him. Burt’s tears are not for Verona’s inability to say yes to his proposal, but Burt is grieving for the very tragic world in which they live with paralyzing painful and broken relationships. Also, Burt is profoundly curious about how Verona and he can thrive in a culture that has limited love. Tears are necessary. Tears are inevitable. Burt is coming to know what Verona has known the whole time; however marriage has been defined is not what marriage means to them.

In this journey with Burt and Verona, there is great difficulty in re-imagining a life in a culture with bounded hearts, unlimited apathy, and forgotten brokenness. They still want newness; newness that allows them to have life and life to the full. Yet, newness does not come without an ending, an ending that allows them to see their life together that is outside of the imagination and curiosity of the dominant culture.

It’s tragic that the imagination of the world around them is this extraordinarily narrow but they know that their life together will look uniquely and richly different. For, Burt and Verona refuse to allow a world that forgets pain, immunizes desire, and limits love to be who they are. They will replace forgetfulness with re-membering, apathy with desire, numbness with passion, and death with hope and love. On this trampoline of lament is a space that allows them to begin to actually live into the desires of their heart and a love that matters.

Matt Allen is a 3rd year MDiv student and an Admissions student representative. Give Admissions a call to talk to Matt!

During my first year at MHGS I felt that I was limited in access to the rest of the classes and – while I loved my people in the 1 year – I wanted to interact with those who had gone before and survived. This opportunity came during the summer term of 2010 and I could not have been more excited to stand behind the counter and interact with my fellow students, spouses, community members, faculty, and staff. In the two months of summer term I saw faces and met people that I might never have seen otherwise.

Now into my second year I can still rejoice because I have the opportunity to interact with the new first year class; what a pleasure it has been for me to see more new faces and hear more stories of how they’ve been affected by the class material and the MHGS culture at large! To be able to look into the face of a first year and know that to them, I am the one who has gone before and I, too, have survived makes this job a joy for me. To hear the stories of everyone who walks into this space and to provide an ear to bend makes me feel as though I have a purpose besides simply hawking the MHGS Bookstore wares, and also that people find peace in the midst of the four walls that create this space inside of a space has been reaffirming for me in this position.

To feel as though I play a integral role in the story of MHGS – this is what drives me as a MHGS Bookstore associate. Come on in and feel free to share how you’re day has been.

Courtney Warren is a second year MACS who hails from Magnolia, Texas (go Bulldogs!). She rode into town in a rented KIA minivan over a year ago and has enjoyed every moment of her life in the Pacific Northwest, but especially loves the changing of leaves in the fall. you can follow her random musings on her blog here or feel free to stalk her on Twitter @_courtneyann_.

Finding myself with a rare night free, I headed to the movie theater.  It was an early Monday evening, and I was seeing a small independent film. Nonetheless, I was surprised to find myself the only person in the stadium-seating theater.  I’m not known as a passive film-viewer in any context, but sitting in that huge, dark space—one tiny human swimming in a sea of screen—I found myself more receptive than usual.

Aaron Schneider’s film “Get Low,” stars Robert Duvall as a guilt-ridden recluse who takes more than a few risks in deciding to throw a funeral party for himself before he actually dies.  It’s a story about regret, about hiding, but also about taking a risk to trust others.   As I watched, the empty theater began to feel over-crowded by the people in my life the film was inviting into the room.  While I listened to the voices of the broken relationships that came to sit beside me, I also heard a phrase repeating in my mind: “This is such an MHGS movie.”

This wasn’t the first time the phrase has come up. In my years as a student, I often joked that if you’re looking for a fun film to un-wind with, the MHGS library is the last place to look.  Strangely enough, I’ve always meant that as a compliment. I’m no film snob, (yes I am), but when I arrived at MHGS and discovered DVD shelves covered in Lars von Trier, Darron Aronofsky and Deepa Mehta, I saw them as representative of MHGS’s posture towards pastoral and counseling work. It’s the rare film in the MHGS library that won’t require you as a viewer to wrestle with your presuppositions, fears, judgments or regrets. These stories delve into some of the darkest places of human nature, but also capture the searing beauty of redemption. The invitation is not to sit back and relax, but rather, as in all aspects of your counseling or ministry training, to lean forward, listen closely and allow your heart to break on behalf of another person’s story—or your own.

When I say something is an “MHGS Movie,” it means it made me repent my fearful nature, aroused empathy for my neighbor, or deepened my gratitude for the complexity of God’s love for me.  Just as my MHGS education trained me to learn through relationship and personal transformation, so my MHGS community has trained me to encounter all stories as part of the larger story of the Kingdom of God. Every new entry into a film, a conversation, or scripture, is an invitation to be shaped and challenged. I may watch a film by myself, but I am never alone.

Kj Swanson is an unabashed Anglophile and theater nerd who feels equal admiration for Charlotte Bronte, Wes Anderson and Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Her interdisciplinary tendencies find vent through being a Teaching Assistant at MHGS, bar-tending at a local theater, and blogging theologically about pop culture. She loves the city of Seattle.

McNeil shares a common story with many MHGS students: he had a comfortable life in Chicago, tenure at an esteemed school, and a community where he belonged. But the call for Derek to join MHGS was too great and as more and more opportunities to shape the future of our school arose, he could no longer resist it.

Jonnali Mayberry, a 3rd year MACP student, shares her perspective for the multicultural implications of Derek joining our faculty:

“The first question was directed at Dr. McNeil’s black race and the predominant race of students at our school: white. I’ll add here that it is in fact Derek’s black skin that is a (for me) reason his upcoming regular presence is welcome news.

Derek joins us as the only black male in leadership at Mars Hill Graduate School. I heard the new dean appreciate that question, as did I, brought by a student of another minority:  same-sexual orientation/affection. He addressed the idea of race in general: Basically, that the goal for MHGS student enrollment is not to gather a bunch of different skin colors – that does not equal cultural differences. He saw the need for MHGS is to know ourselves first and to have a better foundation before opening up the doors to a wider population.

Through my own experience, while I agree that color does not equal culture, by creating a more colorful context, all students will be able to explore their own identities, even the parts of their identities that have not been given space in the past. In my two years in at MHGS, I have been given opportunities to learn more about my own story including that of my ethnic journey and identity. It has been invaluable to do this with other students of various colors at different places in their own ethnic journeys. Dr. McNeil’s presence at our school represents a possibility that our school grow further in inclusion and ability to truly embrace difference, both within a more multiculturally representative academic offering and within faces and associated stories of those who enroll.”

In the following essay, inaugural MHGS Intercultural Competency Scholarship recipient Richard Kim, reflects on and critiques the contemporary immigration debate.  Kim invites our participation as individuals in the midst of a diverse community, to strive for greater equity in “the interplay of Text, Soul and most of all, Culture.”

“I ask myself, ‘Why in 2010 is an institution like MHGS compelled to offer an Intercultural Competency Scholarship?’ As an institution, there is a fundamental responsibility to ensure a just an equitable learning environment for all. As we have grown to better understand justice and equity and the interplay of Text, Soul and most of all Culture there has been a recognition that much work still needs to be done. The complexity and nuance needed to engage these issues are still being worked out; not in isolation, but in community.”

It has been said that the United States has always been a nation of immigrants. Though this may be technically true the reality of immigration (both voluntary and involuntary) to the U.S. has been systematically regulated.

Since colonial times, the restrictions placed on immigration strictly controlled the demographic makeup of this nation. The Naturalization Act of 1790 for example was the first rule restricting citizenship to “free white persons” of “good moral character.” The first laws limiting immigration was the Page Act of 1875 which restricted immigration from “China, Japan, or any Oriental country” before the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 banned immigration outright. The Immigration Act of 1924 would include the Asian Exclusion Act, extending the exclusion of Asian immigrants, and also introduce the National Origins Quota which implemented quotas for immigrants from certain restricted “quota” countries, mainly those in eastern Europe. Generally, immigration was open to protestant western europeans, regulated for eastern europeans and restricted for non white others.

It would not be until the Immigration Act of 1965 that these racist restrictions and national origin quotas were removed from U.S. immigration policy (limited by a cap on the annual immigrant visas issued) changing the literal face of America by opening immigration to people of color.

For many Americans, the diversity inherent in our daily lives is often taken for granted. What is not well known is that this immense diversity was made possible by policies changed only 45 years ago. America today is the most racially, ethnically, and culturally diverse as it has ever been and this diversity is on the increase. By current estimates, the population in the United States will be majority “minority” by 2042 and this years census results will give more accurate estimates. This marks a dramatic departure from the past 400 years of American history.

As a nation still very much trying to reconcile its racist past with its diverse present it is important for all of us to not take for granted the conscious and intentional work required to make this transition well. The changes we have experienced have simply been a result of changes in policy. Prison populations, graduation rates, wealth distribution, and numerous other statistical markers clearly show that we are still transitioning to become a more just and equitable society.

Now more than ever what is being realized is the inevitable engagement with “otherness” in American culture. In the age of globalization, “otherness” has taken on a global connotation which has complicated an already complex situation (not to mention postmodernity and plurality). Otherness is not simply a racial other, but now has the added complexity of ethnic and cultural paradigms. On top of all this is the post-9/11 American sentiment re-stigmatizing the foreign other further perpetuating the globalized sense of otherness. In simpler terms, the language of globalization has perpetuated the foreigner identity of new immigrant groups (post-1965 immigrants).

An inherent characteristic of immigration is the fundamental transplantation of home. Immigration once came with the expectation of assimilating into the new home culture. As the 1950‘s and 60’s began revealing, this new home culture (American culture) was and is one very much bound to it racist Anglo-Protestant imperialist past.

America is still in the process becoming aware of the implications of this great and dramatic change initiated by the Immigration Act of 1965. The contemporary immigration debate is addressing this fundamental sense of American identity. As we Americans continue to learn how engage with otherness in the global context, the expected assimilation of new immigrants domestically has been caught up in this transitioning paradigm.

So what are we to do?

As the son of immigrants, I grew up not really aware of these complex paradigms. As a Korean-American my first glimpse of the race issue in America came the evening of April 29, 1992. The images I saw on television of the Los Angeles riots burned within me. Korean store owners were on the rooftops trying to defend their stores in South Central Los Angeles from mainly black looters, who were angered by the acquittal of four white LAPD officers.

The commentary surrounding this event centered on the traditional civil rights conversation between black and white America. What was left unanswered for me as a 12 year old in Florida was the unsettling images the Korean-American store owners and their place in the conversation – my place in the conversation.

I ask myself, “Why in 2010 is an institution like MHGS compelled to offer an Intercultural Competency Scholarship?” As an institution, there is a fundamental responsibility to ensure a just an equitable learning environment for all. As we have grown to better understand justice and equity and the interplay of Text, Soul and most of all Culture there has been a recognition that much work still needs to be done. The complexity and nuance needed to engage these issues are still being worked out; not in isolation, but in community.

The invitation is for you to engage. Become aware of those around you through a lens that knows something of the history we all come from. Be willing to face your own pretenses and complicity to oppressive structures and systemic injustices. Repent and use your power and privilege to combat injustice and oppression.

It is in the midst of this complexity that we are asked to become competent therapist, pastors and professionals. Will you participate?

When I entered this building a year ago, I felt like a stranger in a new territory. Now, although the promise of a new year always brims with mystery, MHGS has become a place where I am known and where I know others.

Part of my process last year of coming to know others and to be known myself was through participation in my Interpersonal Foundations Reading Group.  In this group I was welcomed, my voice was heard, and I formed relationships that have changed my life. We ate together, carpooled to and from school together, and laughed together. Sometimes participating with the group was a struggle; we wrestled through hard conversations, we were often tired and cranky as we met at the end of a long day, and we didn’t always agree on how to approach group-work. In the end, however, I think that this communal processing was an integral part of my personal development during the first year.

Touched by my own experience, I chose to facilitate an Interpersonal Foundations Reading Group this year. I consider it a privilege to be able to enter the lives of first-year students and walk with them through a challenging and transformational course. There are also other reasons for my decision to become a facilitator as well; as a Divinity student, I also hope to gain experience in mentoring others through deep and potentially divisive concepts using a dialogically communal approach.

As we commence the year, I am looking forward to stepping into my new role as one who is no longer a stranger here, but one who is welcoming others into their new home, and inviting them to be known here. Along the way, I am certain that I myself will also be the one who is transformed and known as well.

Kate Sweet is a second-year Masters of Divinity student at Mars Hill Graduate School. She and her husband Nathan transplanted to the Pacific Northwest from the Midwest over a year ago to begin their adventure at MHGS. Kate enjoys walking in the outdoors with friends, a good cup of coffee in the morning, and seeing things grow and blossom.

We had a bracketing system going, but it didn’t take much for us to see that Dr. Keith Anderson was dominating the game. He cleared out every player that came against him!

The final round was Keith Anderson vs. our new academic dean, Dr. Derek McNeil. It was the closest game, but Keith eked out the win.

Congrats to Dr. Anderson. We’re all ready for next year’s rematch.

During one of my after-school program observations one year, the children in the class were learning Philippians 2:14, “Do everything without complaining.” The teacher asked the children to give examples of situations when they shouldn’t complain. I listened passively as the children named “normal” situations: complaining when their parents ask them to do chores, complaining when they have conflict with their siblings, etc. But my easy, passive mood quickly changed when one child – Seth – confessed, “I shouldn’t complain when I’m hungry.”

It’s hard to explain the thoughts and emotions that I’m forced to reconcile when I have faces like Seth’s imprinted in my mind. My ideals are challenged, and my beliefs questioned. While I normally experience significant internal conflict over the seemingly infinite ethical dilemmas that I face in this work (including whether it’s even my place to do this work at all), I consistently find rest and overwhelming gratitude when I watch children like Seth play, learn, grow, and even eat most days in after-school program.

I feel similar gratitude in the large community of widows that I work with in Cameroon. After organizing over 300 of them into small support groups in 2006 and training facilitators for each group, many of these women have taken serious ownership of their groups. They have grown not only in the way they support and encourage one another but even to the degree of reaching beyond themselves and working to help the neediest people in their communities. In contrast to the way these women literally begged me to help them a few years ago, I am deeply humbled as it now feels more like they are helping me. Every year, they invite me into their community, feed me, listen to me, laugh with me, pray for me, and eventually bless me through their tears when I leave them to return home. My gratitude goes beyond words in moments like these.

This year, as I’m currently entering birth and post-partum doula work in the USA, I plan to spend more time with these women in Cameroon by allowing them to introduce me to their culture’s way of encountering birth. I hope to attend several births, begin to learn the birth and post-partum customs of Kom culture, and offer training in any doula skills and care that might be needed. In this, I’m excited to discover even more opportunities to bless and be blessed by the Kom people of Cameroon.

If you are interested in following my journey to Cameroon this year or reading stories of my previous work, please feel free to visit my blog: aprocessofbecoming.blogspot.com. Also, because I work on a 100% volunteer basis, my work in Cameroon is completely dependent on donations. If you’re interested in contributing to my work and helping me return to Cameroon this year, you can make a donation of any amount to me through PayPal. There’s a link to make a PayPal donation on my blog, or you can send it directly to baine_craft@msn.com.

—

Laurie is a 2010 MACP graduate of MHGS. She’s mostly trying to survive the seemingly inevitable post-graduation identity crisis but also very excited to be in the process of becoming a certified birth and post-partum doula. She blogs regularly at aprocessofbecoming.blogspot.com.

My answer to the query? A mixture of (legally) downloaded Dave Matthews concerts, and a litany of podcasts covering sports, art, politics, and culture. And while I’ll save an explanation for my undying devotion to DMB for another time, I’ll simply say that finding the “right” podcast – one that captures my interest and has something insightful to say about our world – is like discovering a sweet surprise. So when I became frustrated by the selection of podcasts in the “religious/spiritual” category in iTunes, I entertained fleeting thoughts about starting my own.

I had been craving a kind of podcast that allowed me to eavesdrop on folks engaged in rigorous theological discourse, a conversation that had something compelling and prophetic to say about our world and our theological place in it, and one which pushed me to consider and reconsider my own deeply held assumptions about God’s work in the world. Simply put, I had been looking for a podcast that wasn’t simply another sermon or daily audio devotional, but an intellectual engagement with some of our cultural themes and assumptions through a theological lens. So when I stopped merely pondering the idea of producing my own podcast and became serious about it, developing the project with The Other Journal felt like a natural fit.

I’ve been a fan of TOJ for some time, having written for them a few years back and also knowing many of the good people who work on it. They are a tremendous resource for articles that nudge us to see the movement of God anew, and for writing which creatively connects the world of theology, philosophy, art, and cultural critique. When I pitched the idea to Chris Keller – TOJ’s editor-in-chief – he seemed enthusiastic about broadening the scope of TOJ to include a podcast, and we got to work brainstorming potential guests and its place within TOJ’s online quarterly. Before I knew it, the TOJ Podcast was born!

We’ve gotten off to a strong start, I think, as we’ve featured lectures by and interviews with Kelly Johnson, Emmanuel Katangole, James K.A. Smith, Peter Rollins and MHGS’s very own  Dwight Friesen. And we’re continuing to publish more all the time, all in the hopes of providing a thoughtful conversation aimed at exploring the various theological critiques of our culture.

It has been a sheer delight to meet such fascinating thinkers and people, and to discover what occupies their time and attention. I still feel like a novice as an interviewer and producer, and I’m working hard to ask stronger, more insightful questions all the time. But I hope in the process listeners find themselves considering their theological and cultural assumptions a little differently at the end of each episode.

Tom Ryan earned his Master’s of Divinity from Mars Hill Graduate School in 2007. He blogs semi-regularly at tomrryan.com and on Twitter: @tomrryan. You can download episodes or subscribe to the TOJ Podcast by visiting: http://bit.ly/tojpodcast.