We gather in a circle, hand in hand, and scan the faces of those standing in our midst. It is 8:30pm on Wednesday night, and most of us are undoubtedly feeling spent after full days of classes, work, internship and studying. And still, we gather. We take the hand of those nearest to us and we pray –

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit

With blessing behind us. With blessing before us. With blessing to our right, and blessing to our left. With blessing all around us, we journey into Christ. 

With beauty behind us. With beauty before us. With beauty to our right, and beauty to our left. With beauty all around us, we journey to a holy place, indeed.

Glory to the Father, who so loved the world; the Son, who lived, died and rose again, that we might know life; and the Spirit, who births life in unexpected places. 

As it was in the beginning, is now and will be forever, 

Amen.


This is what the end of nearly every Student Leadership meeting looks like at The Seattle School, and it is how I have spent many Wednesday evenings for the past year. We are different ages, in different degree programs, from different cohorts, we are single, married, and we are here, all of us, with the shared desire of serving “our” Seattle School and Seattle-area community. What I have found during my time on Student Leadership is that as we serve our community with one another, we also find ourselves serving one another.

This past year has been marked by great loss and grief in my own life. There were, admittedly, many Wednesdays when I didn’t want to, or didn’t think I physically or emotionally could, show up to Student Leadership meetings. I was exhausted, grieved and almost certain that I had nothing to give. But, in showing up, I had the opportunity to gather at the dinner table with the other members, share stories of my grief and receive heartfelt prayers, support and words of encouragement. My deepest sense of place at this school has been found in Student Leadership, and it is through this organization where I find myself being infused with life, joy, wisdom, growth and friendship, all while strategically and prayerfully discerning how best to serve our community.

What I now know of community, through my time on Student Leadership, is that here, I am invited and desired to show up, regardless of how “chaotic” I feel. Student Leadership is not a place where the fittest come together to serve; but, instead, we show up as is, we do what we can out of our love for our school and we stand alongside, listen to, and support one another wholeheartedly along the way.

As we gather on Wednesdays to plan forums and events for the school, I have become unspeakably aware of the beauty and blessing that truly is all around me. It is a holy place, indeed.

Mallory Larsen is a second year MATC student, currently enjoying the process of figuring out what she wants to be when she grows up. Originally from the Midwest, Mallory has acquired a deep appreciation for Seattle’s mild winters, abundant coffee shops, waterfront restaurants and mountain views. Serving on Student Leadership, superhero-centered conversations with her 2 nephews and happy hour’ing with friends are just a few of her favorite things.

Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be highlighting a few of our community rhythms – events and gatherings that allow our students to share life together. First up, Jorge Tovar tells us about Exhale!

I can’t help but smile when I see the remnant of luggage decorating the spaces in our building.

It is a reminder of the history that inhabits these walls. And before the luggage factory, back when the Puget waters met the western wall, a fisherman’s wharf greeted the day’s catch with open arms. This is the building that now bears our name – The Seattle School.

I smile because the allegory of a former fisherman’s wharf/luggage factory now housing grad students is not lost on me. Just like a fisherman casting his nets into the Pacific, we dive into the depths of the soul to see what can be brought to the surface. And just like a luggage maker filling his space with suitcases, we fill the building with the baggage of our hearts.

We are a group of artists, nomads, farmers, fishers of men, orphans, wanderers, prophets, & gypsies that are desperately seeking to reek of healing of grace. Our pasts chased us into this building, and I’m hoping for a future that will one-day chase us out.

This building is not an easy building to be in. It’s not normal for people to openly tote around so much baggage – let alone talk about it in a room full of aspiring therapists and pastors. We talk about meeting. We find it difficult to be in this building and hold the tension of also being out in the world, let alone finding community elsewhere. For now, we learn to be here, how can we be elsewhere too?

Mainly for it not to be called church, we named it Exhale. We sought just that. We needed a space to breathe – find rest in the midst of our work. Exhale has become my community to hold my past baggage of church & community. I never envisioned Exhale to become for me what it has – a hope, a symbol for how to live out a new way of being in community with others. To be a fisher of men and provide space to hold another’s luggage, this building reflects incarnation.

We meet bi-monthly and take turns sharing. We prepare songs to sing together. We set up microphones, chords, and a projector. We relive the times we’ve done this – set up chords, fix the sound, and set up seating. We laugh, share how much transference we have to these things, and make up a phantasmal Transference Team, just like our past churches had ushers, greeters, and praise teams. We call on this team often!

The past and the future, both welcomed to inhabit the space, as much as we can bear to share in our present. We exhale, breathe from our lungs, “we are here, I need you, be with me, can I be with you”, as chests expand and collapse. We share our stories, talk about communities we’ve failed and been failed by. We break bread, pour Welch’s juice, but communion began long before with the 6 o’clock chimes that mark our beginning. My community is a space that I can breathe with others who know of the shortness of breath we’ve come to remedy. The same aspirations we will one day go out into the world to aid.

Jorge Tovar Jr. and his 8-year-old son Jonathan are transplants from Texas. Originally studying and working in the medical field, Jorge has just earned his Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology. Jorge will begin working as a Practicum Facilitator at The Seattle School and is currently working as a Counselor at Seattle Union Gospel Mission‘s Men’s Ministry. Jorge is just as passionate about Lego Star Wars & Mario Cart with Jonathan as he is the intersection and integration for the art of pastoral, medical, & therapeutic care.

My sunrise service on Easter Sunday took place at The Seattle School. With more impending due dates than I could keep track of, I chose to write papers instead of attending a morning church service. Let’s not judge here.

The decision to do homework on Easter wasn’t exactly an arduous one, anyway. I have been in the midst of a difficult season of life and was not yet past the “silence of Saturday.” Celebrating Christ’s resurrection felt like a far cry from where I stood. If you need me, you can find me in Holy Saturday; the grief, the questions, the waiting, the confusion, the silence and the mourning of a Christ who was no longer with us – or no longer with me, anyway. Lately, it has felt like I am living in one really long Holy Saturday. I’ve heard that joy comes in the morning, but I’m just not sure which morning? For me, I felt the joyful celebration of the resurrection on behalf of all of humanity but, in my own little world of Mallory, I still felt lonely and despairing. Lucky for me, loneliness and despair are the perfect combination for paper-writing. This was going to be one forgettable Easter.

With access to the closed building, because of my job at the school, I let myself in just after sunrise and set up shop at a desk on the top floor. The school was silent and dark, occupied only by me. These were favorable study conditions, but also an appropriate representation of how my relationship with God has felt lately. With my full attention focused on assignments, I began plugging away, admittedly impressed with my own productivity. A couple of hours had passed and I was making some serious progress when, suddenly, I was jolted out of my intense concentration.

Bong. Bong. Bong. The time is 9 am.

Three chimes ring throughout every level of the school on the hours of 3, 6, 9 and 12, day and night. They are intended to serve as a reminder to our community, in the midst of our day, that God is present with us in all that we do. They are a holy interruption. “Nine.Noon.Three” as the practice is often referred to at the school, has been a part of my life for nearly two years now but it was still jarring to hear those bells in that empty building on that weekend morning.

But they rang, loud and clear, at exactly 9:00 am.

My heart started racing when I heard the first bell, startled by its loud and unannounced presence. Initially, I was annoyed by the interruption; I had been making so much progress and the bells were disturbing my flow. However, as quickly as the bells sounded, they were finished, soon allowing me to return to my paper. But, by the grace of God, I couldn’t just get back to work. Truth be told, I was angry that they had rang, frustrated that they never miss a beat, even if it’s early or it’s a weekend or nobody is even there to hear them. They are faithful reminders of God’s presence and, that morning, they sounded deep into the places of my soul that wanted to stay in the darkness of Saturday. I pushed myself away from the desk, rested my head on the back of the chair, closed my eyes and exhaled deeply. Those bells are relentless. They’re often unexpected, always interrupting and they never forget to ring, even when I forget about them.

This God is relentless. She’s unexpected, full of interruptions and just keeps showing up, right when I’ve forgotten about Her or decided She must be taking the weekend off.

That morning, the bells served a greater purpose for me. They were, indeed, holy reminders of God’s presence, even in the midst of silence, loneliness and despair. Those three chimes, which continued to ring faithfully every three hours, moved me towards the joy, celebration and awe of Easter Sunday. What a sweet gift, to be reminded that as deep into the darkness of Holy Saturday I may feel, the bells still chime, and Sunday comes.

Mallory Larsen is a second year MATC student, currently enjoying the process of figuring out what she wants to be when she grows up. Originally from the Midwest, Mallory has acquired a deep appreciation for Seattle’s mild winters, abundant coffee shops, waterfront restaurants and mountain views. Serving on Student Leadership, superhero-centered conversations with her 2 nephews and happy hour’ing with friends are just a few of her favorite things.

Grief speaks.

And, last week, it declared, “Here I am, Mallory! I’m not going anywhere and this time, I cannot be ignored.”

 I had just returned to Seattle from the funeral of my paternal Grandmother, the last of my grandparents to see this side of Heaven. Nine months earlier, I had attended the funeral of my maternal Grandmother, a painful loss in the midst of a busy trimester, which led me to subconsciously and regrettably stuff my grief to the side for the sake of classes, work, and composure.

In the months since that first funeral of 2012, losses have accumulated. Death, ruptured relationships, illnesses of loved ones and the painfully beautiful process of reconstructing how I understand myself and the world around me, have all piled up unforgivingly. Even still, when I walked into our little red brick building after the funeral last week, I was prepared to focus on writing my papers and fulfilling the responsibilities of my job, while energetically participating in our community. I headed straight for a cubicle in the library, pulled out my laptop and…cried. Oh my God, I cried. My cheeks were met with more tears in that morning than they had felt in nearly an entire year. I sobbed in the library, in the chapel, and in 4^th floor offices for hours, asking how I was actually going to be able to “do life” in the midst of this season, and yet suddenly realizing that I have never really integrated grief with life.

Care and compassion. They speak, too.

And, last week, they spoke through the powerful, love-soaked actions of so many people inside this little red brick building. My tears didn’t come to an immediate end and it took a great deal of time for any of my assigned papers to find a beginning; but the grace, the hugs, the conversation and the comforting sympathetic glances from others declared, “It’s okay. You don’t have to try and pull yourself together.” I’m not sure I was able to land on clear and concise answers to my big questions about how grief and life can work together but suddenly, I found that I was doing it – both of them, grief and life – simultaneously. I was doing them both because I am in this community that allows, even begs, for both to be coexisting in our lives, wholly and authentically.

Never have I felt so invited to simply not be okay. I walk around the school with mascara painted all over my tear-stained cheeks, verbally unloading onto unsuspecting classmates and professors. I might step out of class early, totally zone out during discussions, or fall completely short of the expectations I’ve set for myself; and, even still, the voices of care and compassion in this little red building say, “Bless you. Bless your grief. Bless your tears. Bless your missed expectations.”

That’s the thing about this little red building; you step inside and you’re suddenly immersed in this odd sort of counter-culture. When the funeral is over and the rest of the world says, “Get back to work,” the people inside the little red counter-cultural building say, “Grieve on. This is your work.” Because where there is life, there will be grief. They can co-exist and, in fact, they must.

And so, with gratefulness to so many of you, I will honor them both – this ongoing journey through grief and this one sweet life.

But first, I might need to invest in some waterproof mascara.

As a student, there are few moments quite as gratifying as the one when you turn in your final paper for your final class at the end of finals week. Typically, as the paper is handed in, a physical reaction occurs which includes a sudden urge to run through the building shouting “FREEDOM!” (I’m talking Mel Gibson, Braveheart-style). And so, as you can imagine, I was feeling on top of the world on the afternoon of April 16^th, when I handed in my Marriage & Family “it’s-only-worth-fifty-percent-of-your-grade” final paper. Enter: FREEDOM!

My roommate and I headed straight to our favorite sushi restaurant and ate celebratory amounts of salmon skin rolls before treating ourselves to an impromptu pedicure for a trimester well done. Afterwards, as we walked to my car, we were relaxed, happy and barefoot. So you can imagine my surprise (read: paralyzing shock) when I tried to unlock my car but was unable to do so because my car was gone.

After assessing the situation for approximately 2.5 seconds, I noticed the “3pm-7pm: TOW AWAY ZONE” sign (which, sadly, was not placed directly at my eye-level). It was 3:24pm. Those tow truck people do not mess around.

Although my freedom celebration was abruptly cut short, the best part is what happened next…

Continue Reading Less than Desirable Ways to Discover You Have Friends

A few weeks ago we held our annual Donor Appreciation Dinner. It was a special opportunity for The Seattle School to offer gratitude for the generous support of our Donors. The vital mission of The Seattle School is made possible in part by the financial support of people around the country who believe deeply in our work of training people to be competent in the study of text, soul and culture in order to serve God and neighbor through transforming relationships. Our donors consist of friends, staff, faculty, alumni, current students, and Allender Center Participants. We never tire of saying thank you to them. Their generosity fuels our mission!

Watch President Keith Anderson and Professor Dan Allender share their humble thanks in the videos below.

To learn more about The Seattle School Donors, visit theseattleschool.edu/partners.

Jordan Rickard is the Manager of Financial Development at The Seattle School. In this role, he strives to cultivate financial resources in support of The Seattle School’s mission. Jordan earned a Master of Arts in Theology & Culture from The Seattle School in 2008.

 At The Seattle School, reading groups are a central part of our education – many classes have assigned groups where you discuss the readings and lectures. First-year Mallory Larsen talks about the initial struggle and eventual saving grace of her reading group.

Top: Kristi, Mallory, Brian, Drew; Bottom: Claire, Cori (Facilitator), Grace, Lindy, Hayden

It was the second week of my graduate school experience. I had been drowning in readings, questions and fears as I sat in a room with eight strangers, better known as my assigned Reading Group. We are required to meet for two hours each week to discuss the readings in our Interpersonal Foundations and Hermeneutics classes. Although it was only our second meeting, I’d already grown to dread it – just another thing jamming up my calendar.

On this particular Tuesday evening, I decided to share with this group of strangers the decision I had considered about 30 minutes earlier. “I think I’m going to quit school,” I said, fearfully. Continue Reading Reading and Community

A letter from graduating MACP student Solomon Chan. Lots of references to our community life, so if you’re not a part of MHGS just yet, bear with us.

Dear Mars Hill Graduate School,

So, I guess this is kind of a goodbye letter. A letter that I don’t really want to write, but want to, because our relationship isn’t going to be the same anymore in a couple months and I’m trying to process this bittersweet season.

I’ve never been in a relationship with someone like you so this is really difficult. I remember even before meeting you, I’d heard through whispers here and there that you weren’t like all the others; that you really cared about “text, soul, and culture” (and I’m sure that meant so many different things to all the people who had ever heard that about you). So I was intrigued and decided to check you out. Since then, I’ve had my own experience of what “text, soul, and culture” can mean in my own life, and I’ve come to love you so much.

To this day, the first sight of your large red brick body stands out in my mind. Continue Reading Goodbye

We’ve got some exciting events happening at the school and wanted to make sure everyone was invited!

MHGS Open House
February 7, 6-8PM
Join us on February 7th for an intimate evening with MHGS faculty, alumni and current students. Come hear about our three transformative programs, our conferences, and our effort in furthering our mission. Tours and food will be available and staffers will be around to answer any of questions you may have. We’ll also be serving chili!

Register for the Open House.

God is Dead and I Don’t Feel So Good Myself – A Lecture by Jon Stanley
February 9, 7PM

Navigating the cacophonous choruses of our culture’s religious and secular fundamentalists can be overwhelming. What does it mean for Christians to be salt and light in this acrimonious cultural climate? Are there more productive atheisms and theisms than we find in their contemporary resurgent forms? How do we understand the rise of the current “God debate,” and is there a third way beyond it?

Come hear Jon Stanley, an MHGS Alumnus and author, in exploring how Christian faith can be a source of hospitality rather than hostility, one that opens a space for meaningful conversation between religious and secular people, and increased traffic between religious and secular thought, in our pluralistic society.

Learn more and Jon Stanley’s Lecture

Class Visits
Sit in on a class to gain a first-hand experience of what it’s like to be an MHGS student! We’re holding spots for visitors in:

• Marriage & Family with Dr. Dan Allender – February 28, 3:30-6PM
• The Artist Way with Dr. Chelle Stearns – March 1, 10:30AM-12PM
• Mission in a Global Context with Dr. Dwight Friesen – March 1, 12:30-2:30PM

Contact Anya Reeser, Admissions Counselor for more information.

Experience MHGS Weekend
If your not in Seattle for our Open House, you can plan on joining us for our visitation weekend on March 25-26. You’ll get to hear stories from students, faculty, and alumni as well as share your own story. You’ll also experience what it’s like to be a student here and have time to explore our favorite Seattle spots. If you make the March 14 Application Deadline, you’ll also be able to interview that weekend (but no need to have your application completed if you want to join us for the weekend.)

Learn more and Register for the Experience MHGS Weekend

2nd year MACP student Ashlee Knight reflects on beginning a new term at MHGS as a member of Anamchara, the realm of MHGS Student Leadership that focuses on community life.

Looking outside at the gray and rainy Seattle sky, it is hard to recognize the beauty in what January brings. Yes, it is a time for hibernation, Netflix and rain boots, but it is also a time for dreaming and anticipating the fresh things God has in store for the new year. January gives us the gift of joining God in the unveiling process: the unveiling of hope, restoration, beauty, relationship and blessing.

Continue Reading January Thoughts