I had a bizarre experience several years ago; bizarre perhaps because it happened in the most ordinary of moments.  I was going through my typical routine to prepare to go to work:

• Eat breakfast? Check.
• Teeth brushed? Check.
• Hair in order? Check.
• Socks match? Yikes…glad I checked.

What was different on this particular morning was that I happened to glance down at the swirling pattern of my fingerprint on my left index finger. It occurred to me that I hadn’t looked this closely at my finger since I was 5 or 6 years old, if not younger. I was struck by the complexity of the pattern and astounded by how unfamiliar it looked to me. I wondered, “How on earth have I been bearing these marks on my fingers for all of this time and yet failed to notice them, literally, for decades?”

Continue Reading Curiosity

Excuse the self-indulgence, but we’re pretty proud of our alumni!

We recently commissioned Blaine Hogan to write up a post about our school on his blog. It’s a great read and highlights the-very-messy-but-always-worth-it transformation that happens through our education:

They believe (as do I) that with intentionality, sacrifice, and a dot of hope, glorious things can be redeemed through the process of uncovering your story…It was in this intersection that I began to discover what I referred to above as my “full self.” It is because I ventured into this intersection that I’m starting to tell more truth and create continually better work.

Give the post a read, and be sure to subscribe to Blaine’s great blog.

Blaine’s also been very busy himself! This summer, he published his first book, aptly titled UNTITLED: Thoughts on the Creative Process.

UNTITLED will walk you through the creative process of attacking the blank page, executing vision, believing in the importance of contemplation, fighting the beast of resistance, learning from your failures, and creating beauty from the inside out.

This book is my manifesto and I hope it becomes yours as well.

You should buy two copies of his book: one for you and one for a friends!

As if that wasn’t enough, Blaine is currently working on a short film. He’s blogging a bit about the process and we can’t wait to watch it. This teaser is making us itch for more!

Reaching Alice (look & feel teaser)

First-year Counseling Psychology student Kelly Pattison walks us through the range of emotions at this year’s orientation week.

It was the first day of orientation. I was walking toward that red brick building and I was terrified. I had given up so much to pursue this journey, and suddenly, here I was at the end of the process. I was at the doorstep of matriculation, and I didn’t know if I was ready.

Continue Reading (Re)Orientation

We have had the privilege of journeying with MDiv first-year, Jocelyn Skillman as she shares her growth, fears, art, poetry, and heart. For her final posting, Jocelyn leaves us with a poem as she completes this first year and enters into the next years of study at The Seattle School. You can find all of Jocelyn’s posts from this year here.

This first year spits me out

Sweaty and satisfied.

I’m not spinning.

I’m facing forward.

I’m thanking That Great One

—the one we moved in, and found our rest in—

For the greatest year of my life.

Jocelyn Skillman was born in the Seattle area and attended the University of Puget Sound where she studied Comparative Sociology and Ancient Greek. She is involved in sketch comedy in Seattle and loves yummy food, gibberish, and playing pretend!

MACP graduate Shannon Stauffer reflects on the life-changing experience that shifted her graduation date from 2009 to 2011: becoming a mother.

While I could write volumes about my journey at Mars Hill Graduate School, I am sitting here trying to retell a story of transformation in a few paragraphs. As I attempt to distill what has defined my MHGS experience, two snapshots continue flashing into and back out of my conscious thought. The first is of sitting at my orientation in the first week of school; the second is of sitting at my expected graduation, watching from the general audience as my classmates walked across the stage without me. Together, these stories symbolize essential elements of my MHGS story.

At my orientation we performed an exercise to discover which one of us most embodied the typical MHGS student. As I sat down, bumped out of the running early on by virtue of being a married student, little did I know how different my experience of Mars Hill would be from what I expected. As it turned out, my journey would take almost 5 years and would include much more than the labor of obtaining a degree but would revolve around the labor of becoming a mother, not once, but twice while I earned my degree. When my husband and I learned we were unexpectedly expecting a child during my second semester at Mars Hill, all I could see was how a child would be a set back to my education. What I could not see was the deep blessing that God knows both what I need and what I deeply desire better than I do. I could not have known that bearing children would be essential to my heart’s ability to receive all that God had for me at MHGS.

Continue Reading A Mars Hill Journey: Reflections on Life and Death

Andrew Bauman, MACP alumnus and faculty member, shares the inklings on hope turned into action.

Christy: “Hey babe, the realtor called and wants to know if we are ready to make an offer on the condo?”
Andrew: “Well, actually, I have a different idea.”
Christy: “Oh, really?”
Andrew: “I think we should buy land in Malawi and start a non-profit to fight global poverty.”
Christy: “Hmm… Yes, let’s do it.”

I both love and fear my wife, Christy. She understands and encourages my moments of divine delirium. She holds loosely to the dreams of this world and is willing to pursue passions that promise to fill our lives with sacred meaning.

A few months after our wedding we were considering using our wedding money as a down payment for a condo. However, a previous trip to Malawi, Africa was fresh on our hearts. During our time there we fell in love with the people of Malawi. They are a joyous people despite their lack of material wealth. They had something we had little familiarity with: contentment, authentic community and conversations consistently filled with deep resounding laughter.

Continue Reading Dreaming Big

2nd year MACP student Rebecca Canlis wrestles with the reality of beginning her internship this summer.

The second semester is a curious one for the MACP student.  We’ve been at this grad school thing for a while now and we think maybe, just maybe, we’ve got the hang of it.  We are different people than when we arrived: more confident, more self-aware, kinder, bolder. We know our APA, we can write a WDP in our sleep – we’ve got this.

Then certain rumblings become audible in the hallways, side conversations become tense during class breaks over open laptops and hot coffee, long hugs that say “you are okay” instead of just “hi” are exchanged between friends. The anxiety begins to build… Internship? Wait a second, that starts now? Does everyone else already have their internship figured out? Does everyone else have this therapy thing figured out? Am I the only one who doesn’t feel ready to be a thrown into the ring? Am I the only one who’s afraid to actually put this stuff into practice and – gasp! – “sit with someone”?

Continue Reading Ready for the Real World?

3rd year MACP student Jari Hackmeister rejoices over and recoils from the end of her time as a student at  MHGS.

I graduate in 2 weeks and 3 days.

The thing is, coming into this place, I never really expected to get out.  They said things like, “You’ll counsel one of your classmates while 6 other students and two facilitators watch and critique.”  Ok, SURE. They said, “Write a paper expressing what you know of the issues and dynamics of your family of origin, and how its influenced and implicated your style of relating.”  YEAH, uh huh. And they said, “Obtain an internship at at an eligible site and be a therapist to real people for hundreds of hours.”  Wha… “Oh, and of course you’ll be unprepared and inadequate to do so.  That’s what internships are for!”

For reasons I have been called to name, though I won’t do so here, I really expected to be able to get out of some of these things.  I expected a big “Just kidding!  Wouldn’t that have been RIDICULOUS?!?!” or at least an “April Fools!”  But no. They weren’t kidding about any of it. They really asked us to do that stuff. And we did it. But the most unbelievable part is what they’re saying now: “Congratulations. You’ve finished.”

When Kristen Houston: Registrar EXTRAORDINAIRE, said those words to me, I came back with a quick, “Well what if I don’t want to be!? What if I WANT to take more classes this summer? What if I don’t want to go?!”
Continue Reading “I Graduate in 2 Weeks and 3 Days…”

2nd year MACP student Jonathan Merker meditates on the heartbreak and hope inherent in researching issues of trauma and abuse.

It’s research paper time and I just got back from the library with this stack of books in my arms. I had a list of three books, but after just a few minutes in the aisles, here we are with eight. I shared my research paper topic with some friends back home, saying, “I don’t know my thesis yet, but I’m researching how male victims of childhood sexual abuse harm themselves sexually as adults.”

Their response? “That sounds awful. You’re crazy.”

Continue Reading Resurrection and the Research Paper

2005 MHGS alumna Maryjane Wilt talks about her risky yet rewarding leap into authorship, with the recent publication of her first book and study guide, Grounds for Marriage: A Fresh Starting Point for Couples in Crisis.

I’ve been an avid journal-writer since my 10^th grade English teacher provided time for journaling in class. (Thanks, Miss Morrison. I apologize for not including you in my Acknowledgments.) My journal-writing went from avid to feverish, however, upon enrolling at MHGS. Even so, never in my wildest dreams, did I imagine that my journaling would materialize into a book.

But the volume on my coffee table, titled, Grounds for Marriage: A Fresh Starting Point for Couples in Crisis, published just one month ago, is proof positive when I become most doubtful.

Actually, I didn’t want to write this book, and I put it off over and over again, partly because I didn’t want my personal story of failure to be out there for everyone to know and critique. Plus, the message of this book doesn’t necessarily conform to the standard message of the Christian faith community. I expect that some will call me a heretic at worst, and misguided at best. I expect that others will share the sorrow that drove the writing of this book. In the end, however, I had to write the book to cool the “fire in my belly,” to borrow Jeremiah’s words, from which it arose.

If calling us to true intimacy is heretical, then I guess I’ll take my place with the heretics.

Continue Reading Grounds For Marriage