In early June, just before I came to Seminary of the Southwest to begin here as Director of Enrollment Management, I led a group of students from the Episcopal school where I had been serving as chaplain on a study tour in Israel. It was an incredible gift to walk alongside these mostly rising tenth graders on holy ground.
These students and I had all read the Old Testament together as I had been their teacher for that required course during the previous school year. And here we were, exploring the birthplace of those texts and of our own faith as Christians—touching ground where Jesus walked, praying at the Western wall, sweating in the desert sun at Qumran, gathering for worship in one of the olive groves on the hillsides outside Jerusalem. We put our feet into the Mediterranean Sea, the Sea of Galilee, the Dead Sea, and the Jordan River. It was a most beautiful close to that chapter of my ministry, and I treasure it.
At the other end of my summer, I traveled with our incoming M.Div. and DAS students on their new student retreat in mid-August. I was not sure what to expect, but there’s a tradition of Enrollment Management accompanying these new students on these days away, and so I went along. Breaking with tradition, however, this was the first year the faculty also went on retreat to Mo Ranch. We ran concurrent retreats, faculty and new students, separate and yet in the same place, sharing meals, worship and fellowship between sessions.
I spent my time with once and future leaders of the church I love so much. I listened in to their hopes for and questions about their time in Austin. I heard their stories of call and their dreams for their future ministry. I reflected on my own questions, hopes and dreams for my new role as well. I shared their longing to return to family members back in Austin who were making their own adjustments to our new home city. I soaked it all up, savoring this quiet time away to connect with my new community.
Mo Ranch is closer than Israel, and my companions here are quite different than my companions on the early summer trip, but I felt the same powerful sense of the holy there. And we shared some similar experiences from my Israel trip, worshiping together in a new place, sweating under the sun, dipping our feet into new waters. I felt God breaking into our conversations, shining a new light on shared hopes and shared anxieties. I saw God in the coincidences and shared passions discovered when faculty and students sat down to meals of camp barbecue or cafeteria oatmeal. Together, we were witnessing and participating in the birth of a new community at Southwest, and that is holy work.
On our way home, the faculty graciously included me in their lunch gathering. The joy at that table was infectious and our laughter filled the room—so much so that another diner came over to tease us, saying, “What a shame you all don’t like each other much!” Our time away and our hopeful expectation of a new year of good work together fueled that mirth.
When has a chance to step away from your usual routines become holy for you? How close is God’s holy presence in your everyday work and play? Who are the people God has placed in your midst to mirror the holy for you? Where is joy bubbling over in this new year?
