Monthly Archives: February 2016

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” – Marianne Wilson

(This quote is often attributed to Nelson Mandela, who used it in his inauguration speech)

Introduction: Storytelling, Atonement, South Africa, and Re-learning to Love the Blog

Seminary, , , ,

Why am I doing this?

When I was a little girl, I used to write stories for fun. I had this video game with a cartoon bookworm named Wiggins, who lived in a tree, and I would write stories to fill the branches. As my stories and I grew, the tree grew. If I close my eyes, I can still hear the jingle that played at the beginning of the game. It’s so obscure that I cannot find it on YouTube!

Back then, I knew far more about the worlds I was imagining than about the one I was living in. All the Star Trek: The Next Generation I watched (for as long as I can remember) instilled in me a sense of endless possibility, continual crossing of horizon lines, and humanity being capable of bettering itself.  I think believing the best in a people is a good quality to have for a soon-to-be Episcopal priest.

Now that I’ve been existing on this planet for a while (on my good days, “existing” can even be considered “adulting”), I have more stories in my heart than just the ones I imagine, both ones I’ve lived and ones that have been entrusted to me along the way. When my professor, the Rev. Dr. Michael Battle, asked me to articulate my greatest passion, I told him that it is storytelling. The priest I grew up with, The Rev. Dr. Ken Gorman, preached a powerful last sermon in which he talked about how we all have a piece of the Divine within us. Furthermore, when we make ourselves vulnerable, we not only reveal that bit of Christ in ourselves, but we invite others to do the same. Telling out stories – our deep truths and our journeys – and receiving the stories of others is how we encounter Christ in each other. It’s how we build bridges across the gaps between us. It’s where we laid our own chief cornerstone in the stories of Abraham, Moses, Esther, Paul, and Jesus.

Currently, I’m in my last semester at General Seminary, and as I get ready to graduate, I’m taking two classes that include a social media project, storytelling and reflecting on both the theology of atonement, which I’m taking a course in, and a pilgrimage course to South Africa.

In January, I went to South Africa with a group of students, alumni, and a board member led by the Rev. Dr. Michael Battle and his South African colleague, the Rev. Edwin Arrison.  Our week-long journey, entitled “A Walk with Desmond Tutu,” involved lots of traveling and lots of listening. We broke bread with powerful voices in the Anglican Church today and the anti-apartheid movement from years ago, including Fr. Michael Lapsley; the Rev. Rene August; John Allen, Desmond Tutu’s biographer; Professor John de Gruchy; the Very Rev. Michael Weeder, Dean of St. George’s Cathedral; Nomfundo Walaza; students in the #feesmustfall movement and more. We visited Robben Island; the District Six Museum; Volmoed, a retreat center near Hermanus; Zwelihle, a township in Hermanus; a farm in Stellenbosch; the University of the Western Cape; Stellenbosch University; and St. George’s Cathedral. Our journey culminated in having breakfast with Archbishop Tutu himself. It was an amazing adventure! Exiting the “bubble” of the United States offers the chance to gain perspective, both on how our culture looks from afar and how my own life looks, when I step back from it. If you’ve ever seen Monet’s water lilies, then you know that if you stand too close, it can look like nothing more than big blobs of paint. It’s when you step away and take some space that you see that that “blob” is a flower, and it’s surrounded by other flowers, with a whole lot more going on than you can see up close.

IMG_4419“A Walk with Desmond Tutu” – January 2016

This adventure to South Africa was not my first one, but my first trip is the one that taught me I needed to go back. My second trip taught me going back once is not enough. For my first trip, I was a Young Adult Service Corps missionary, sent by the Episcopal Church. My stories surrounded three pillars. First, I lived at the Anglican Society House (“AnHouse”) at the University of Cape Town and journeyed with my thirteen housemates in daily life and adventures. Second, I commuted (by train and public taxi) to Cape Town proper a couple of times a week to work in the main office for the Anglican Student Federation (ASF), the student network for the Anglican Church of Southern Africa. Here, I got to know the amazing student leaders who make God’s work extend across the province with very little resources. Finally, while I didn’t explicitly work at Hope Africa (Amanda Akes did), the staff there were my people, too. ❤

CIMG5946levels***Highlights of the Good Life***
August 2010- August 2011

With this foundation, I hope to talk about what I’m starting to learn about atonement as well as unpack some of my reflections from my adventures in South Africa.